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  "description": "Notes on Daniel 7:9-14 and Matthew 28:16-20",
  "path": "/ascension-day-2026/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-14T08:50:33.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.parrott.ink",
  "textContent": "# Ascension Day\n\n## Readings\n\n  * Daniel 7:9–14\n  * Hebrews 2:5–18\n  * Matthew 28:16–20\n  * Psalms: 8, 47; 24, 96\n\n\n\n _(If you have the time, read the Hebrews passage too — it's also great.)_\n\n## Matthew 28:16–20\n\nNow the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshiped him, but they doubted.\n\nAnd Jesus came and said to them, \"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.\"\n\n## Daniel 7:9–14\n\n(See the lectionary OT reading for the full passage; verses 13–14 are the key Ascension verses.)\n\n_…I saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven. And he came to the Ancient One and was presented before him. To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed._\n\n## Notes\n\nAscension Day. The feast of Jesus' enthronement as King of the universe, seated at the right hand of God.\n\nA conceptual note up front. We habitually picture heaven as _up_ —Jesus floating off into the sky—but that has never been the best read of the Ascension. Heaven is not a location in three-dimensional space; it is more like a _parallel dimension_ , the invisible reality that runs alongside this one. Jesus is not _away_. He is _seated_ in the throne room of the unseen realm. Which, in the language of Hebrews, is the same throne room we are invited to _approach with boldness_. The work of the kingdom is not getting _up there_ someday; it is _removing the barriers_ between the visible and the invisible, here, now.\n\nTwo readings today belong together. Daniel 7:9–14 sees the Son of Man receive dominion. Matthew 28:16–20 narrates the moment Jesus claims it.\n\n**The Daniel/Matthew parallel.** Daniel 7:14: _\"To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him.\"_ Matthew 28:18: _\"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.\"_ Same scope. Daniel saw the vision; Matthew shows us the vision becoming actual. Daniel 7 is one of the texts most central to Jesus' self-understanding—the \"Son of Man\" language he uses all through the gospels comes straight from here.\n\n**Verses 16–17.** \"The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain. When they saw him, they worshiped him, _but they doubted_.\" Worth pausing on that. The risen Jesus is right in front of them and _some doubted_. Matthew is not trying to clean this up. The disciples Jesus is about to commission are not paragons of certainty. The mission is given to a group that includes doubt.\n\n**Verse 18.** _All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me._ The Daniel 7 callback. The authority is enormous— _all authority, everywhere_ — but worth saying what kind it is _not_. Jesus did not exercise _dominating_ or _colonizing_ authority. The Great Commission has been weaponized for centuries in service of colonial expansion, and that misuse rests on collapsing Jesus' authority into Caesar's. They are not the same. Jesus' authority is the authority of the lamb who was slain. Whatever Christians are given to exercise has to look like _that_ , not the other thing.\n\n**Verse 19.** \"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.\" _Go_ in English looks like the main imperative, however, it isn't. The Greek _poreuthentes_ is an aorist passive participle— _as you go_ , or _having gone_. The only finite imperative in the sentence is _mathēteusate_ — _make disciples_. The \"going\" is assumed; the doing is the disciple-making. More accurately: _\"As you are going, make disciples of all nations.\"_\n\nThat changes the feel of the verse considerably. The Great Commission is not primarily a _go somewhere_ instruction; it is a _while you are already going, make students_ instruction.\n\n_Disciples_ (_mathētēs_) literally means _students_ , _learners,_ not converts in the modern sense, not church members, but _students of Jesus_. And _of all nations_ — _panta ta ethnē_ , all peoples—universalizes the audience. Anyone, anywhere, can be a student of Jesus.\n\n**Verse 20.** \"Teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.\" _Teaching_ is _didaskontes_ (the root of _didactic_). _Obey_ is _tēreō_ — which means more than _do what you're told_. It means _keep, guard, watch over, retain custody of_. Disciples are not just performers of the teaching; they are _trustees_ of it.\n\nThe closing line: _\"I am with you always, to the end of the age.\"_ _Age_ is _aiōnos_ again. Not _eternity_ as infinite duration but _the end of this age, which is passing_. Jesus is with us through _this_ age, until the new one fully arrives.\n\nThat is the Ascension. The enthroned King saying _as you are_ _going_ _I am with you_. He is seated; he is also present. Heaven is not far away.\n\n## Questions for reflection\n\n _The disciples Jesus commissions worship him and doubt. Where in your faith are you waiting to be certain enough before you act on what you've been given — when the original commission was given to a group that included doubt?_\n\n_If \"go\" is \"as you are going,\" and the imperative is \"make students\" — what changes if you stop waiting to be sent somewhere new and start discipling where you already are?_",
  "title": "Ascension Day 2026",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-14T08:50:34.455Z"
}