Today the Church celebrates the Solemnity of Ascension. (Depending on where you are; check your local listings.) It’s worth pondering: Why did Christ ascend? Why, having conquered death, did He not remain? Wouldn’t it have been simpler for a manifestly divine, resurrected Jesus to walk the earth, for however many millennia it might take, converting sinners by the unmistakable fact of His glorified bodily presence?
In the Acts of the Apostles, the disciples ask Jesus a question which suggests that they were thinking along these lines themselves: “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” It is a reasonable question to ask the newly risen Messiah, but Jesus avoids a direct answer: “It is not for you to know the times or seasons. . . .But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Both the question and the response suggest an answer to our original question.
Jesus did not come to be a worldly ruler. That is to say, He is the master of the universe, but not in a worldly sense.
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