Christ's Work for Man and with Man.
In one sense the Ascension was the end of Christ's emptying Himself for us of His glory; the end of His suffering, of His slow waiting while the will of God wrought itself out. The end had come. The great exaltation had succeeded. He had ascended up into the heaven where He was before.
I. But in another and higher sense it was not the end, and it is of great moment that we thoroughly realise this for the strengthening of our hearts in this our time of trouble. His work was not yet finished; rather, we may say, it had reached a grander stage of development than ever before. That sitting of His at the right hand of the Father was not a negative repose. Still the mystery of those words which He gave them "My Father worketh hitherto" still these were being fulfilled, although He had ascended up into heaven again, still He was doing, still He is doing, a work for man and with man.
II. A work for man. He sketches it out in many sayings to His disciples, "I go to prepare a place for you;" "In My Father's house are many mansions." These mansions in which humanity was not; those mansions in which the blessed spirits were, but to which a child of Adam had never yet mounted, to them He, the second Adam, the Head of the human family, ascended up that He might draw His brethren after Him. On His throne of mighty power He makes intercession, He pleads His death on Calvary. He presents in Himself the whole human family acceptable to the Father, because He is one with Him. "He ever liveth to make intercession for us," presenting each one of us who thus believes in Him as precious before the throne of His Father.
III. He is working not only for, but with, us. He has but imported into His work all the might of His omnipotence. He is at the right hand of power, and yet He is with us, beside us. As this is true of each separate soul, so is it true in the great world-history. All things have been ordered by Him for the elect's sake. While man is left free, each one to do as He will a true free agent, and, therefore, truly responsible that hand of power is shaping and moulding events. Ordering all things as the tide of time surges under His eye; each soul in that mighty tide moves as he will, yet the whole tide sways at His bidding, and the earth performs His will. While the ascension of our blessed Lord is, in one sense, the end, in another and yet higher sense it is the beginning, the opening of the true kingdom of grace descending upon us with the Holy Ghost. Again, this presence of Christ is ever present to the soul, and is comfort to the afflicted. Thou hast a great temptation; thou hast fallen, but thou hast the Lord beside thee, and thou mayest lay thy burden upon Him, and thy tempted, weary, fainting soul may rest itself upon the Love which is beside thee.
Bishop Wilberforce, Penny Pulpit,new series, No. 542.
References: Mark 16:19. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, The Life of Duty,vol. ii., p. 253; J. Keble, Sermons from Ascension Day to Trinity Sunday,p. 104.Mark 16:20. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. i., p. 253.