Some of the most weighty moments in ministry take place largely out of sight. They unfold across coffee shop tables, at lunchtime meetings, and in conversations behind closed doors. We sit with people as they invite us into their deepest hurts — grief that lingers, marriages under strain, sin that damages, prayers that seem unanswered. Often, we do these things while carrying our own burdens as well.
We listen. We pray. We point people to Jesus. Then we move to the next task of the day, carrying with us the stories entrusted to us. These moments rarely come with clear resolution. The work is slow, layered, and not easily measured.
It is an immense privilege to walk alongside people in this way, but it also requires patience, humility, and a willingness to entrust what we cannot control. It is work that can subtly tempt us to carry what was never meant to rest on us.
Scripture reminds us that this work is never carried out alone.
Recently, one truth has increasingly steadied me in this: the ascended Christ has not stepped away from the life of his church. The ascension was not a withdrawal. It was not Christ leaving behind the work of shepherding his people. Scripture teaches that in his ascension, Jesus exercises his prophetic, priestly, and kingly ministry in its fullness on behalf of his people.
After his resurrection, Jesus declares, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18). His ascension marks not the loss of presence but the assumption of his throne. At the same time, he gives this promise: “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). The one seated at the right hand of the Father is the same one present with his people. In John’s Gospel, Jesus says that we are better off without his physical presence with us, because he can send his Holy Spirit to indwell us (John 16:7).
The letter to the Hebrews brings this into focus. Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father as our great high priest, having entered the true heavenly sanctuary on our behalf. His ascension is not a retreat from his work but the continuation of it in a different mode. From there, he appears before the Father for his people, interceding for them and representing them continually. The sacrifice has been offered once for all, yet, the work of Christ is not confined to the past. Christ actively applies the benefits of that sacrifice.
Paul speaks in similar terms. The risen Christ is exalted far above every authority and given as head over all things to the church. His reign is not abstract or distant. It is exercised for the good of his body. He is not removed from the life of his people; he fills them with his life, sustaining, directing, and strengthening them as their living head.
John Calvin captured the paradox beautifully in his “Institutes.” Christ, he writes, “withdrew his bodily presence from our sight, not to cease to be present with believers still on their earthly pilgrimage, but to rule heaven and earth with a more immediate power.”
In fact, Calvin suggests something even more striking: Christ left in such a way that his presence might become more useful to us than when he walked the roads of Galilee in the humility of his flesh. What appears at first glance to be distance is, in fact, a deepened nearness: his presence no longer confined, but extended for the good of his people.
According to the presence of his body, Christ is in heaven. According to the presence of his majesty, he is never absent from his people. Believers once saw him with their eyes; now they hold him by faith. His nearness has not been diminished. It has been transformed.
From this place of exaltation, Christ’s work is not merely preserved; it is active. As Herman Bavinck observes, the ascended Christ is not only enthroned but engaged in his ongoing priestly ministry. He has entered the heavenly sanctuary, appearing before the face of God on behalf of his people, and continues to intercede for them. The priest who once offered himself for sin now lives to apply the benefits of that sacrifice, ensuring that what was accomplished in his death is continually brought to bear in the lives of his people.
This ongoing work is neither static nor distant. As John Owen notes, the glory of Christ in heaven is seen most clearly in the way he exercises it for the church. The exalted Christ does not merely possess glory; he communicates it. Even now, he dispenses the grace he secured through his redemption as he sustains his people, strengthens their faith, and supplies what is needed for their perseverance. Christ is not only the hope of future glory, he is the source of present grace.
And so, even now, Christ is not distant from the life of his church. He is the priest-king seated on the throne of the universe, the head who fills his body with life, the shepherd who gathers, protects, and rules his people. From heaven, he continues to intercede, to sustain, and to pour out the riches of his grace.
This reality has profound implications for the work of ministry: we do not enter this work alone. The ascended Christ has already gone before us, and he remains actively at work within it.
We listen to burdens we cannot carry alone and speak into situations we cannot resolve. The question arises, sometimes quietly and sometimes with force: Who is sufficient for these things?
Scripture answers plainly. “Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God” (2 Corinthians 3:5). The work of ministry was never meant to rest on personal adequacy. It rests on the ongoing work of Christ.
When we sit across from someone whose life is unraveling or step into a meeting that will be painfully difficult, we do not enter those moments alone. Christ has already gone before us. He is the one who searches hearts, the one who knows fully what we can only begin to understand. While we listen, he intercedes. While we pray, he presents our prayers before the Father. While we struggle to see what he is doing, he is already at work applying the benefits of his finished redemption.
When we leave these moments in ministry wondering whether anything meaningful has happened, we don’t need to trust in our own insight or effectiveness. The same Christ who spoke with authority on earth now reigns with that authority from heaven. The Word of God continues to accomplish its purpose, even as the Spirit continues to convict, comfort, and renew.
When the cumulative weight of ministry begins to press, we are not the ones ultimately bearing it. There is one who bears the names of his people before the Father, not for a moment, but continually. He sympathizes with our weaknesses, and upholds his church with unfailing faithfulness.
Even the unseen work of ministry is not removed from the presence of Christ. The ascended Lord is present among his churches, standing among the lampstands (Revelation 1:12–13). He remains actively engaged in the life of his people. He is already there in slow repentance, faltering prayers, and situations that seem to have no clear way forward.
He is present with his church, including those who serve within it. He not only sends, but he also sustains. He reigns as king and intercedes as our high priest. He is both our future hope and our present source of grace.
And so, in the work of ministry, we are not left to carry what was never ours to bear alone. We serve in the presence of the ascended Christ, already at work among his people, and faithful to the end.
Catherine Duffin is director of spiritual formation at Christ the King Presbyterian Church in Houston, Texas.