Happy Return

You ascended to the heights, taking away captives; You received gifts among people, even from the rebellious, so that the LORD God might live there. – Psalm 68:18

Here is how Paul quotes that verse in Ephesians 4:8, “When He ascended on high, He took prisoners into captivity; He gave gifts to people”.

I did not read Gagdad Bob’s incredibly powerful post on Holy Saturday until this morning, but it coincides with the fact that I started reading Charles Williams’ Descent Into Hell last night.

I think I miss the evident for the obvious. Which is the forest – evident or obvious? How many trees does it take to make a forest? If a tree is a fact, is the forest an interpretation or an extrapolation? While talking to my wife yesterday, it occurred to me that a phrase in the Epistle to the Ephesians was of far greater significance than I could understand. He says, “Till we come … to a perfect man, to the measure of stature of the fullness of Christ” – that is to say until we reach maturity as measured by comparison to Christ. The Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ must come of age. He calls us to take His yoke upon us, but we cannot be unequally yoked.

Most of my relatives are not tall people. We range from short to average. Dad was about 5’7” and his nephew Clifford was about the same, maybe 5’6”. They had a neighbor named Tom who was well over six feet tall but slightly blunt on top. The three of them were cutting some logs together. When they carried the logs out on their shoulders, Dad took one end, Clifford took the other, and they suggested Tom get in the middle. Tom thought those logs were a little heavy. If you’ve ever seen a “Ma and Pa Kettle” movie with Marjorie Main, you might recall Pa’s rather mismatched team hitched to his wagon. In that case, it’s the little horse that has to work much harder to do what the big horse does.

The gospel is the “death, burial, and resurrection” of Christ. As we just celebrated, He liberated and despoiled hell – or as one local preacher puts it: Jesus razed hell. After descending to liberate and deliver, the Lord ascended to pour out the Holy Spirit with His myriad of gifts upon us. These gifts are not baubles for our adornment or playthings for our amusement; they are the means of our growth in wisdom, maturity and beauty.

The Lord has “ascended”. In this case, the obvious is that Jesus is no longer in this world, in the stream of time. He is, as it were, hidden from the Bride. He has given us the Comforter, the “earnest of our inheritance”, but He has left us in time while He waits in eternity – already perfect and unchanging, “the same yesterday, today, and forever”.

And then there is the evident. For what is He waiting?

For us, the Bride, to grow up.