Today (May 14, 2026) is a Christian holiday in some European countries. I bet many of you didn’t know that. I can say that without any arrogance because I didn’t know it either. And I clearly wouldn’t have known it had I not read an article today by a pastor friend of mine from Missouri, Brian Zahnd, about how it is the least known holy day in the Christian calendar. Give up? It’s Ascension Day, the fortieth day after the resurrection—the day the church remembers Christ’s ascension into heaven.
Too many of us think the gospel story can be told with Christmas, Good Friday and Easter alone, and the ascension is no big deal. It’s just Christ going up into heaven, right? And that’s the problem. Most of us think of it as only that, and now we’re waiting for Him to return and set up His kingdom.
Well, it’s a little bit more than that.
Scripture says that when Jesus ascended into heaven God placed Him at His right hand—the place of power and authority in the heavens, and He rules from there. Listen to what Paul says in Ephesians 1:21-23, “Now he [Christ] is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else—not only in this world but also in the world to come. God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church. And the church is his body; it is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with Himself.”
Kind of diminishes any kind of nationalism from which we might try to gain earthly power even for godly purposes. Why get all excited about having one nation under God when all nations on the earth, over the earth or under the earth are already under the authority of Jesus Christ the Lord.
And why wait for His return—assuming He’s gone somewhere, waiting for His time to come back—when He already “fills all things everywhere with Himself”? That sounds like He didn’t go away at all… He’s everywhere. That’s why He could tell His disciples that He would never leave them, or forsake them.
The answer for the world will not come from any nation; it has already come from Jesus Christ the Lord and His death, burial, resurrection and ascension, and from God’s kingdom, which is already here. The aim is not to make any country great again, it’s to make the church prophetic again, and set us moving out in His power.
Painting by Giotto di Bondonne, 1303
