Today is Ascension Day. It is the liturgical celebration that remembers the ascension of Jesus into heaven as recorded in places like Acts 1. It used to be a big celebration, and people would come out for worship services that recalled the ascension and its meaning for us. Today it’s just any other Thursday for most Christians. But just because it isn’t celebrated with pomp and circumstance with a worship service doesn’t mean that it isn’t important. 
The fact that Jesus rose from the tomb is important, but so is the fact that He rose from the earth into heaven. The Apostle Paul gets into an interesting discussion of why this is important in Ephesians 4, right before he lays out the “Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Teacher, Shepherd” gifting of the Church. He says: “But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.” (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,”
I used to be sort of annoyed with Paul’s seeming interjection of the ascension here. It seems to disrupt the flow of what he’s saying in this chapter, and I can be so bold as to critique Paul’s writing style without critiquing the Holy Spirit’s content. But it does make good sense to include this here. Paul is showing the logic of the ascension as it relates to the Body of Christ. Paul says, basically, the Christ had to ascend and get away from earth so that the Church could be the Church. As great as Jesus is, Jesus isn’t the Church and He doesn’t want to be the Church. But that would be the temptation if He stayed on earth. He knew that if He stayed it would slow the development and expansion of the Church.
So instead, Christ rose, and gave His Church the gifts that belonged to Him – the gifts that Paul says are in the people – the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, and the teachers. Some people have asked the question, “when do the disciples go from being just disciples to being the Church?” Paul seems to answer that question pretty clearly – on the Day of Ascension. On that day, the day we celebrate today, we consider how Christ has gifted us, His disciples, to be His Church.
Today, if you haven’t done so – it would be a great Ascension Day discipline to answer the questions of the Five Fold Survey (linked here) and to let us know how you “scored” so that together we can rejoice in the gifts that came tumbling out of heaven when Christ rose into the clouds.