“And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted for you: on the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall wave it” (Leviticus 23:11).

Between the time of Christ’s resurrection and His final ascension, He made a very brief journey to heaven. This was “on the morrow after the sabbath,” immediately after His resurrected body had left the tomb and He had appeared to Mary Magdalene. “Touch me not;” He told Mary, “for I am not yet ascended to my Father” (John 20:17).

We do not know all that He did during His brief return to heaven, but two of the Old Testament offerings at least give us certain suggestions. “Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, . . . by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. . . . For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us” (Hebrews 9:11,12,24). Like the high priest of old, who could not be defiled by human hands as he carried the blood of the sacrifice into the holy place, Christ symbolically must quickly present His own precious blood to the Father as the price of our eternal redemption.

He is also the great “first fruits of them that slept” (I Corinthians 15:20). Having conquered death, He must wave the sheaf of the first fruits of the buried seed “before the Lord,” in token of the day when death itself shall be destroyed, and all the dead in Christ shall live again.

If the angels sang at the birth of Christ, think what it must have been like in heaven when He returned! All His hosts must have greeted Him with exultation: “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, He is the King of glory” (Psalm 24:9,10). HMM