The Ascension, our Glory and Joy
I. All the mysteries of the "Word made flesh," have their special comfort for us, and so has the mystery of the Ascension. It were little for us, compared to this, that God the Son had taken our nature, if then (as misbelievers said of old) it had been dissolved into the majesty and glory of God, and had ceased to be, although in God. And so our whole union with God would have been forfeited. Christ would have ceased to be, and the Incarnation of God the Son would have come to nought. It is our very own Lord, He Who became one of us, Who walked to and fro among us, Who went about healing all who were oppressed by the devil, comforting the broken-hearted, keeping company with sinners, admitting publicans and harlots to come to Him; it is He, the sinners' friend, Who is now at the right hand of God for us.
II. What He was, He is; save as to those infirmities which in heaven cannot be. In heaven He cannot again be hungry, or weary, or athirst, or sorrowful, as neither shall we be if by His grace we attain thither. But He has, even now, thatof our nature, which we, His members, shall have in the glory of the resurrection. The very presence of His glorified body in heaven is an earnest of mercy stored up for us. He ever liveth to make intercession for us.
III. He is entered in, not for Himself only, nor only to intercede for us, but to prepare a place for us; that where He is, there, He saith, may My servant be. Nay, there, in a manner we are already. For where the Head is, there in some sort, in token and in earnest, and in virtue are the members. There is our conversation; there our life is hid; there are the first fruits of the Spirit; there has He made us to sit in heavenly places with Himself; there is our home; there, if by God's grace we persevere, above the stars, are the vacant seats prepared for us, that as He overcame and is set down with the Father on His throne, so to us, by His strength overcoming, shall He say, Sit down with Me in My throne.
E. P. Pusey, Parochial Sermons,vol. ii., p. 216.
References: John 12:26. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. viii., No. 463; S. Cox, Expositions,2nd series, p. 274.