He was a man who taught and worked and died. He appeared to travelers and disciples. We don't experience him in the way that they did. Yet, we continue to experience him. In the Christian calendar, we mark the 40th day after Easter as the day of the Ascension of the Lord.
They had listened to his teaching. They had asked him when things would be the way they wanted them to be.
He told them that the Holy Spirit would visit them and bestow power upon them.
He vanished from their sight.
But not from their lives.
Another Repeat:
If you had been living in that time and place where the itinerant healer and preacher was crucified, would you have been able to foresee that his teachings would be remembered 2,000 years later? How likely would it have seemed to you that from a small bunch of scared followers, a world-wide religion would develop?
How did it happen?
A clue is in this passage from Acts. After his resurrection, Jesus appeared to the disciples he had chosen to be his apostles. He told them that they were going to be empowered by the Holy Spirit to be witnesses to the ends of the earth."
They were. And they did.
from Psalm 47:
Sing praises to God, sing praises;
sing praises to our King, sing praises.
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