Today is Ascension Day in the Christian Year.

And this week we've been reflecting on why the ascension of Jesus was and is so important.

Yesterday we were thinking about the fact that there are two aspects to the work

of our Lord Jesus as prophet and priest and king. We call them his finished work and his

unfinished or ongoing work. As prophet we saw yesterday that the Lord Jesus continues to speak

to his church through the ministry of His Word

to us. But he also continues his priestly ministry. We've seen before that when we think

about priestly ministry, we tend to focus on sacrifice. And certainly, our Lord Jesus at the

heart of his priestly ministry has sacrificed himself

for our sins.

That of course was fundamental to the work of the Old Covenant priests, and it is certainly

fundamental to the ministry of our Lord Jesus.

The Old Covenant priests kept standing because theirs was not the real sacrifice and they

continued to make it daily.

Hebrews tells us that our Lord Jesus Christ has made a sacrifice of himself once and for

all, and now, thinking about the ascension, he has sat down at the right hand of the

majesty on high.

So Christ has made a sacrifice and finished his work.

But that isn't the end of our Lord Jesus' priestly ministry.

Making sacrifices for sins was one part of the priest's regular ministry.

The other part was making intercession for the people.

It was his responsibility, and we see this in different ways in the Old Testament, his responsibility

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