March 19 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven" (Luke 24:50–51).

Devotional

Let us approach the spot where our Redeemer ascended. It was from Mount Olivet, near Bethany. The two accounts of Christ's ascension recorded by Luke, the one in his Gospel (24:51), and the other in his Acts (1:12), perfectly agree. How full of great, holy, solemn, even awful, associations would that spot hold for Jesus! It was no strange, unfamiliar ground to him.

At the foot of that mount, from whose summit he entered into glory, he had been in the habit of resorting with his disciples for holy meditation and prayer.

There, too, his sufferings commenced. There he endured the fearful conflict, when his soul was "very sorrowful, even to death" (Matt. 26:38). It was there, prostrate in the dust, the cup of trembling in his hand, the sweat of blood falling to the ground, he three times poured out his soul in that touching prayer—"My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will" (Matt. 26:39).

Yes, it was from Mount Olivet, the scene of his deep mental agony, and near Bethany (which signifies the house of affliction), that our blessed Lord ascended to his Father and his God, to enjoy his presence forever, and to drink deeply and eternally of the pleasures which are at his right hand (Ps. 16:11).

And so it will be with all his members. As if to heighten the glories of heaven in contrast to the sufferings of earth—as if to give a deeper melody to our song, a richer sweetness to our joy, a higher character to our ecstasy, and a profounder sense of the grace that brought us there—it often pleases the Lord that affliction, in various forms, should throw its deepest gloom around the path of the children of God when they are just on the eve of their translation to glory. And when—in anticipation of a smooth descent and a cloudless sunset—we say with Job, "I shall die in my nest" (Job 29:18), God our Father seems to have reserved the bitter dregs of affliction's cup for the dying lips so that we are constrained, like Jacob, to anticipate that our grey hairs will be brought down to the grave with sorrow. Thus, through many tribulations we enter the kingdom (Acts 14:22). Out of the house of affliction, and, as it were, from Mount Olivet, we ascend to Mount Zion, borne up as in a chariot of fire.

Let it be so. "He does all things well" (Mark 7:37). Compared with the sufferings of Jesus, it is, even in its heaviest form, only a "light affliction;" and put side by side with an eternity of bliss, even in its longest duration, it is but "momentary" (2 Cor. 4:17).

The sands of time are sinking,
the dawn of Heaven breaks;
the summer morn I've sighed for—
the fair, sweet morn awakes;
dark, dark hath been the midnight,
but Dayspring is at hand,
and glory, glory dwelleth
in Immanuel's land.

O Christ, he is the Fountain,
the deep, sweet well of love!
The streams of earth I've tasted
more deep I'll drink above;
there to an ocean fullness
his mercy doth expand,
and glory!—glory dwelleth
in Immanuel's land.

The King there in his beauty
without a veil is seen;
It were a well spent journey,
though seven deaths lay between:
the Lamb with his fair army,
doth on Mount Zion stand,
and glory!—glory dwelleth
in Immanuel's land.

The Bride eyes not her garment,
but her dear Bridegroom's face;
I will not gaze at glory
but on my King of grace.
Not at the crown he giveth
but on his piercèd hand;
the Lamb is all the glory
of Immanuel's land.

O I am my Beloved's,
and my Beloved's mine!
He brings this poor vile sinner
into his "house of wine."
I stand upon his merit—
I know no other stand,
not e'en where glory dwelleth
in Immanuel's land.

(Anne R. Cousin, 1857, from Samuel Rutherford, ca. 1600–1661)

Be sure to read the Preface by Octavius Winslow and A Note from the Editor by Larry E. Wilson.

Larry Wilson is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In addition to having served as the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC (2000–2004) and having written a number of articles and booklets (such as God's Words for Worship and Why Does the OPC Baptize Infants) for New Horizons and elsewhere, he has pastored OPC churches in Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio. We are grateful to him for his editing of Morning Thoughts, the OPC Daily Devotional for 2025.