Luke’s Ascension Story and Our Justice Work Today
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Luke’s Ascension Story and Our Justice Work Today
Herb Montgomery | May 15, 2026
If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Luke.
Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sinsis to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”
Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God. (Luke 24:44-53)
Our reading reflects the early Christian community interpreting Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection and its ongoing significance within the framework of the Jewish scriptures. That’s why this passage jumps right in with Jesus saying “Everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” By the time Luke was written, it was a retrospective account: the followers of Jesus are reading their sacred texts anew in light of Jesus’ life, state execution, and their belief that he had been raised.
Modern scholarship generally recognizes that Second Temple Jewish texts do not contain a direct prediction of a suffering and rising Messiah in the way this passage suggests. Instead, what we see here is a creative and interpretive rereading of diverse scriptural traditions such as lament psalms, the suffering servant passages in Isaiah, and prophetic narratives of vindication, all woven together to construct a coherent narrative the disciples were now interpreting as hints toward Jesus. This process is often described as pesher, where earlier texts are understood to find their fuller meaning in present events. Pesher (Hebrew for “interpretation”) is an interpretive technique found in the Dead Sea Scrolls where scriptural verses are treated as prophecies directly fulfilled in the contemporary time of the interpreter. It was common among the early Jewish Jesus followers when it came to Jesus and their scriptures.
The phrase “he opened their minds to understand the scriptures” is interesting here, too. This reflects the community’s belief that understanding Jesus’ life, teachings, death, and resurrection requires a certain interpretive scriptural lens. In other words, this interpretation of scripture is not self-evident. Their minds had to be “opened.” The claim of these early Jesus followers was that their scriptures must now be read through their experience with Jesus. This suggests that for the author of Luke’s gospel the authority of these interpretations lies not in their obviousness, but in the communal and theological commitments of the Jesus-following community that is doing the reading.
Additionally, the emphasis on necessity through phrases such as “must be fulfilled” or “the Messiah is to suffer” reveals an understandable effort by early Jesus followers to make sense of Jesus’ death at the hands of Rome. By framing Jesus’ suffering and resurrection as divinely ordained and scripturally grounded, Luke’s community tries to make sense of the trauma of the death of Jesus. The narrative transforms what could be seen as failure into fulfillment, thereby reinforcing faith and identity.
The beginning of our reading this week underscores how early Christianity positioned itself within, rather than outside of, Jewish tradition. The appeal to “the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms” asserts continuity even as it introduces a radically new interpretation. In my opinion, this portion of Luke’s gospel is best understood not as a transparent window into Jesus’ own self-understanding, but as a sophisticated theological construction that reveals how his followers came to understand Jesus and their relation to Jesus in the aftermath of his death.
Next in our reading this week, we encounter the phrase “repentance and forgiveness of sins.” This phrase in the gospels and the book of Acts is often read through an individualistic lens relating to private moral failure, inward remorse, and personal absolution. Yet when situated within the world of the Hebrew prophets, these terms carry a far more communal and political weight. They are not primarily about isolated interior states but about the restoration of right relationships in society, which the prophets consistently described as justice.
The Greek word for repentance here, metanoia, suggests a change of mind or direction. In the prophetic tradition, however, that turning is never merely inward. It is a collective reorientation of a people who have strayed from societal justice. The prophets repeatedly call Israel not simply to feel remorse but to “return” (shuv). Shuv means to dismantle systems of exploitation and to reestablish equitable social life. Isaiah, for example, rejects empty personal, religious ritual, and demands that the people “seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow” (Isaiah 1:17). Repentance is measurable not by private confession but by transformed social practice.
Likewise, forgiveness of sins in this prophetic framework is not divine leniency toward individuals. It is the restoration of a community in which harms are repaired and right relationships are rebuilt. The vision of Jeremiah speaks of a renewed covenant where injustice is no longer embedded in the social order (Jeremiah 31:31–34). Similarly, Ezekiel links forgiveness with the giving of a “new heart” that enables the people to practice justice (Ezekiel 36:26–27). Forgiveness, then, is not an abstract declaration but a lived reality of communal healing and transformation.
When the gospel of Luke puts this prophetic language on the lips of Jesus, the author signals continuity with the Hebrew prophetic tradition. The “forgiveness of sins” proclaimed to all nations is inseparable from the liberation announced earlier in Luke’s Gospel. This is Jesus’ good news to the poor, release to captives, and freedom for the oppressed (Luke 4:18–19). Sin, in this context, is not personal wrongdoing but participation in unjust systems that harm others. Repentance, therefore, entails turning away from those systems and actively participating in their transformation.
This reading challenges modern tendencies to privatize faith. Luke’s vision, grounded in the prophets, calls communities into a shared process of accountability, societal justice, and restoration. Repentance becomes a public act of reordering life toward justice, and forgiveness becomes the social reality that emerges when liberation takes root. Together, they name not a cycle of individual, private, personal guilt and absolution but a collective social movement toward a more just and compassionate world.
Lastly this week, let’s consider the different endings in Luke’s Gospel and Matthew’s Gospel. These endings in Matthew and Luke present two distinct narrative trajectories for the spread of the Jesus movement, and those trajectories reflect each community’s theological and social priorities.
In the Gospel of Matthew, the movement begins in Galilee and expands outward to “the nations.” After the resurrection, the disciples are directed away from Jerusalem and back to the margins of Galilee, a region often associated with cultural mixture and distance from religious power. There, on a mountain, the risen Jesus gives what is often called the Great Commission to make disciples of “all nations.” The geography matters. Galilee represents a space outside elite control where the movement first took root among ordinary people. Matthew’s ending suggests that the renewal Jesus inaugurated does not depend on Jerusalem’s institutional authority. Instead, it emerges from the periphery and moves outward, crossing boundaries of ethnicity and identity. The implication is that transformative change begins among those closest to the grassroots and radiates globally.
Luke, by contrast, recenters the story in Jerusalem. In his Gospel, the disciples are told to remain in the city until they are “clothed with power from on high.” They never return to Galilee but stay in Jerusalem. For Luke, the Jesus movement begins in the symbolic and political heart of Jewish life before extending outward. This trajectory is continued in its sequel, the Acts of the Apostles, which describes the message going from Jerusalem to Judea, Samaria, and then “to the ends of the earth.” For Luke, Jerusalem is not rejected but reinterpreted. Jerusalem becomes the launching point for the Jesus’ community’s universal mission. The movement does not bypass the center; it transforms it and then moves outward in widening circles.
These differing endings reveal two complementary but very different visions. Matthew emphasizes decentralization: the good news arises among marginalized communities and challenges dominant systems from the outside. Luke emphasizes continuity and expansion: the movement begins within the historic center of religious life and then pushes beyond it to include ever-wider circles of people.
Taken together, these perspectives offer a fuller understanding of how the early Jesus movement grew and unfolded. It was far from univocal. For some, the movement was radical, returning to its roots on the margins of Galilee. For others, the movement was radical in another way, remaining in the heart of Jerusalem and challenging the social, religious, and economic elite class. What can we glean from these gospel endings?
Change may arise from the margins, as Matthew suggests, where new possibilities are imagined from entrenched power. At the same time, as Luke presents, transformation can also engage the center, reshaping unjust systems from within before extending outward. The early Jesus movement, as remembered through both of these two lenses, is rooted in overlooked places on the margins and in direct interaction or even conflict with the centers of society. In whichever place or social location we find ourselves today, both endings encourage us as we continue, on the margins outside of systems or within them, working together to shape our world into a just, compassionate, safe home for all of us.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How is this week’s reading informing your own justice work? Share and discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
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My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
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Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 3 Episode 21:Luke’s Ascension Story and Our Justice Work Today
Luke 24:44-53
Change may arise from the margins, as Matthew suggests, where new possibilities are imagined from entrenched power. At the same time, as Luke presents, transformation can also engage the center, reshaping unjust systems from within before extending outward. The early Jesus movement, as remembered through both of these two lenses, is rooted in overlooked places on the margins and in direct interaction or even conflict with the centers of society. In whichever place or social location we find ourselves today, both endings encourage us as we continue, on the margins outside of systems or within them, working together to shape our world into a just, compassionate, safe home for all of us.
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery
Available now on Amazon!
In Finding Jesus, author Herb Montgomery delves into the profound and often overlooked political dimensions of the gospels. Through meticulous analysis of biblical texts, historical context, and social discourse, this thought-provoking book unveils the gospels’ socio-political, economic teachings as rooted in a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of the marginalized. The book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, presenting a compelling argument for a more socially engaged and transformative Christianity.
Finding Jesus is not just a scholarly exploration; it is a call to action. It challenges readers to reevaluate their understanding of Christianity’s role in public life and to consider how the radical teachings of the gospels can inspire a renewed commitment to justice, equality, and compassion. This book is a must-read for those seeking a deeper understanding of the social implications of Christian faith and a blueprint for building a more just and inclusive society.
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