Jesus Christ has ascended to the right hand of God the Father. This does not mean that He is now on the other side of the universe. It actually means that His authority is suffused throughout the entire universe.
And this is inescapably political. Jesus is a king. Not only is He a king, but He is a king of kings—and this includes every earthly king. Not only is He a Lord, but He is Lord of lords—and this includes every earthly lord. Jesus is king. He is lord. He is president. And we, all of us, are summoned to answer to Him.
We do not have the right to cook up a secular arrangement for our civil affairs. We don’t control how the nations of men are supposed to be governed—He is the king, and so He does. We do not have the right to say that in this progressive era, we have outgrown the need for divine authorization for our laws. We need divine authorization for our laws, now more than ever. This can be ascertained in a moment, simply by glancing at the kinds of laws that crawl out of our legislatures these days.
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We are Christians in the first instance. Our loyalty to Jesus is fundamental and primary. And mark this, our political loyalty to Jesus is fundamental and primary. This is what Ascension Sunday means. This is what we celebrate. This is what we are marking. Ascension Sunday might go by other names—Inauguration Day, or perhaps Coronation Day. And why? Because Jesus has full authority to tell us what we are supposed to be doing.