I think one of the toughest mysteries for a Christian to grapple with is why Jesus, risen and victorious over death, had to physically depart His followers once again to ascend to God in Heaven. Perhaps the best explanation for this that I have read comes from Saint Cyril of Alexandria. He wrote:
After Christ had completed his mission on earth, it still remained necessary for us to become sharers in the divine nature of the Word. We had to give up our own life and be so transformed that we would begin to live an entirely new kind of life that would be pleasing to God. This was something we could do only by sharing in the Holy Spirit.
It was most fitting that the sending of the Spirit and his descent upon us should take place after the departure of Christ our Savior. As long as Christ was with them in the flesh, it must have seemed to believers that they possessed every blessing in him; but when the time came for him to ascend to his heavenly Father, it was necessary for him to be united through his Spirit to those who worshipped him, and to dwell in our hearts through faith. Only by his own presence within us in this way could he give us confidence to cry out, Abba, Father, make it easy for us to grow in holiness and, through our possession of the all-powerful Spirit, fortify us invincibly against the wiles of the devil and the assaults of men.
In order to understand the Ascension and Pentecost, we must realize Jesus' goal was never to build an earthly kingdom. At the time of His crucifixion, neither the apostles or the Jews understood this. When Jesus refused to save Himself by coming down off the cross, the apostles felt defeated as they ran away and the Jews felt vindicated as they mocked the Lord. Yet, by the third day it was Christ who had defeated death and mocked Satan, once and for all.Our faith hinges on Easter. If we do not believe that Jesus rose from the dead, then Christianity is a farce; a convenient story conjured up by 11 men who had had their leader nailed to a tree and killed. So why should we believe? In the Acts of the Apostles, Gamaliel, a Pharisee, warned the other elders and scribes about persecuting the apostles. He said: I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone; for if this plan or undertaking is of men, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God! (Acts 5:38-39) Ultimately, many chose not to heed the warning of Gamaliel. All of the apostles but the traitor Judas and John became martyrs in defense of the Early Church. Isn't it likely that, if Christianity was a human "plan or undertaking", these men would have chosen to confess to their lies rather than give up their lives? Their martyrdoms are the best evidence ever for the truth of the resurrection, and they were able to be so steadfast only because they were strengthened by the Holy Spirit.
Two thousand years later, still nobody has been able to overthrow the Church, though many have tried and many continue to try as you read this. The Church is constituted of imperfect people, sinful in nature and prone to weakness and failure. Yet the Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is able to fashion a Church that clothes the naked, feeds the hungry, shelters the homeless, administers the sacraments, and numberless other acts of charity and grace. The Church will continue to go through trials, perhaps even severe ones, as modern society increasingly deviates from traditional Christian morality and standards. But so long as the Holy Spirit remains in the Church and her members, it shall remain an indefatigable force for the salvation of the world.
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