And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” In Acts 1:9–11 we read,Īnd when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. What sounds like an absolute disadvantage, Jesus promises will turn into an advantage. He says that it is expedient or necessary for Him to go away so that the disciples may be filled with the Holy Spirit. Jesus also explains why He must leave them. But Jesus says the condition that they will experience will be temporary, that the sense of abandonment they may feel for a moment will give way to unspeakable joy. Their mourning will reach the limits of its human capacity. In the first instance, Jesus says that their hearts will not simply be touched by sorrow or grief or disappointment, but there will be a fullness of sorrow that saturates the chambers of their hearts. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. Just shortly before this enigmatic statement, Jesus had said to His disciples:īut now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, "Where are you going?" But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you’ ” (John 16:16–22). When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. “Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, ‘Is this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, “A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me”? Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. So some of his disciples said to one another, “What is this that he says to us, ‘A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while, and you will see me’ and, ‘because I am going to the Father’?” So they were saying, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about.” Imagine the shock and profound panic that filled the hearts of these disciples when Jesus said that it was just about over.Ī little while, and you will see me no longer and again a little while, and you will see me. He told them that the days of their intimate companionship in this world were coming to a hasty end. Jesus told them that He was leaving them. These were the original eyewitnesses of the earthly ministry of the Son of God.īut one day, these men heard from the lips of their teacher the worst of all possible news. What He did, they saw with their own eyes. These men were the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth. Their ears heard what ancient saints had a fierce desire to hear with their own ears. Their eyes peered openly at things angels themselves longed to look into but were unable. They had witnessed what no human beings before them had ever seen in the entire course of history. These men had spent three years in a state of unspeakable joy.
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