Pre- and Post-Ascension

Thirty of May’s thirty-one days are pre- or post-Ascension days. They are “between” days—between Easter and Ascension (May 1-23) or between Ascension and Pentecost (May 25-31). Let us seek grace to pause a moment by May’s “between times” to consider the valuable experiential lessons they contain for God’s weaned and/or waiting people.

Between Easter and Ascension: Weaning Time

Jesus’ apostles learned much in the forty days between His resurrection and ascension into heaven. Spiritually, these forty days were especially their weaning time.

Prior to Jesus’ resurrection, the disciples always knew their Master’s address. They walked with Him sensibly, physically, consciously, day-in and day-out.

Post-Easter was different. They didn’t know Jesus’ address. His comings and goings were uncontrollable.

From the fleshly perspective, it appears that the exalted Jesus had less communion to offer His apostles than did the humiliated Jesus. Spiritually, however, the contrary is true. The disciples learned more in forty days post-Easter than in three years pre-Easter. Consider just three thoughts:

First, between Easter and Ascension, the disciples were weaned from the physical presence of Jesus.“It is expedient for you that I go away” and “Touch me not” were hard but profitable lessons. To be weaned from walking by sight, in order to learn the footsteps of faith produces severe growing pains. Dear believer, have you learned to value the act of faith trusting upon Jesus more than the eye of sight?

Secondly, between Easter and Ascension, the disciples were weaned from trusting in anything but Christ.Fishing boats, reputation, apostolic gifts, life itself—all became empty without Jesus. On the back side of Easter, the disciples had to learn to look more to Christ’s blood than human tears; more to Christ’s spiritual than their earthly kingdom; more to Christ Himself than to personal graces; more to the Christ of experience than to the experience of Christ; more to Christ’s objective promise than to their human, subjective feelings. Post-Easter, the apostles had to learn that the soul’s greatest blessing is to trust Christ in both absence and presence, since darkness and light are both alike to Him (Ps. 139:12). Dear friend, are you gaining in nakedly trusting the only Name given among men under heaven by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12)? Thirdly, between Easter and Ascension, the disciples were weaned from the notion that quantity supersedes quality.Post-Easter, they received fewer instructions, but gained more in understanding. Have you learned that the critical matter is not how manytexts or special providences you have received from the Lord? Rather, how deeplyhas what the Lord has spoken led you into the mysteries of the gospel of free and sovereign grace? Have you learned to know this only Savior as Prophet, Priest, and King?

Between Ascension and Pentecost: Waiting Time

As pre-Ascension is to weaning, post-Ascension is to waiting. Post-Ascension, the apostolic church learned the grace of waiting for Pentecostal fulfillment.

Firstly, they learned to wait for the time decreed by the Father,for Jesus had told them He would send the Spirit at the Father’s time. Such waiting involves lessons like these:

• To bow under the sovereignty of God’s timing.

• To acknowledge the Father’s justice, were He never to send the promised Spirit, for all blessings are forfeited.

• To exercise sovereign graces received is especially essential in “waiting times.”

• To realize that when Pentecost would fully come, God Triune must receive all honor and glory.

Secondly, they learned to wait through the faith wrought by the Holy Spirit.Such lessons as these were forthcoming:

• To learn dependence upon the Holy Spirit in exercising the art of holy waiting, for fleshly nature cannot watch one hour.

• To learn faith’s quiet surrender to, and secret strength from, trusting in the Spirit’s own work.

• To learn faith’s reliance upon the Spirit even when He seems to withdraw Himself.

• To learn faith’s trust is not in faith itself, but in the faithfulness of God Triune who cannot forsake the works of His own hands.

Thirdly, they learned to wait upon the promise guaranteed by the Son of Cod.Hence they learned:

• That the objective promise embraced by faith is infallible because it is Christ’s faithful covenant promise.

• That the fidelity of the promise on God’s part is to be trusted more than possession of the promise on our part.

• That the promised Spirit not only must and will come, but also cannot fail anymore than Christ can fail, for He is the Spirit of Christ.

May God teach us such experiential lessons in this May’s pre- and post-Ascension days. May we beg for and experience weaning and waiting grace, not resting until we know vital union with the resurrected, ascended, Spirit-sending Lord of lords.

Dear believer, seek grace to war against your Master’s weanings no longer. And wait on. Forget not that even the “small things” of communion with Christ make all weaning and waiting far more than worth the price.

On the other hand, dear friend, if we are strangers of a “weaning” and “waiting” life, we miss both the ascended Christ and the need for the pentecostal Spirit. Without the personal applicationof God’s Word by the Spirit, this special season of commemorating Christ’s redemptive acts can only testify against us.

Dr. J.R. Beeke is pastor of the First Netherlands Reformed Congregation of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Rev. J. den Hoed is pastor of the

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