City Life Starter

Written by Aisha Darwesh.

The Word

⁵⁰ And he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. ⁵¹ While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. ⁵² And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, 53 and were continually in the temple blessing God.

–Luke 24:50-53 ESV

Aisha’s Analysis

I feel very honored to write on the culmination of the Book of Luke in today’s verses. Here, we see Jesus blesses His disciples before He ascends into Heaven followed by the disciples worshiping Him and returning to Jerusalem with great joy. 

Their response to Jesus’ parting is particularly encouraging – they worshiped Him, followed His instructions to wait in Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God. This shows us they were blessed, not abandoned. 

It also shows us the disciples were operating based on faith in Christ – not necessarily their physical senses, which is what they did earlier in their walk with Jesus during His earthly ministry. In those days, whenever Jesus would speak of leaving them, it would cause alarm, confusion, and fear. 

Now, we see the disciples worshiping and rejoicing. Even though they could no longer physically see Jesus, their belief in His promises and of course His faithfulness to His promises, kept their relationship strong and fervent with faith, hope, and love. This led to great joy! 

I find it so encouraging that the focus of the disciples totally shifted from their physical surroundings and circumstances to Jesus’ promises. Think of it–they were still technically under Roman rule and faced a threat of further retaliation from the Jewish leaders/Roman soldiers, yet what were they doing? They were worshiping God and continually in the temple blessing Him and experiencing great joy. 

What an example for us in our day-to-day lives. In the hard times and the good, we can stay rooted in Christ and experience continual joy no matter what. Christ is risen from the grave, conquered sin and death, and truly is the King of kings. That will always be true no matter what else is going on. Hallelujah!  

Appication

Faith is a process. The same disciples who scattered in fear at Christ’s crucifixion also gathered in the temple to worship Him after He ascended to heaven. Be encouraged that even in the times when we abandon God/abandon faith, God still has a plan to restore us to faith and right relationship with Him. 

As an act of worship to our glorious King and as a way to celebrate the season (it’s Christmas Eve as I’m writing this), sing the following worship song, shared below.

Prayer

Father God, I am so incredibly grateful that even when I abandoned You in fear, You have never once abandoned me or given me a reason to doubt You. Quite the opposite, You bring me great joy! May I continually draw from this deep well of joy inside me especially as I go through challenging moments in life. In Jesus’ name, amen.