But Jesus Did Leave

I've shared how precious Jesus' last words in matthew are to me. I'll be with you. But there's a problem isn't there? A few days after promising that He'd never leave His disciples, He did just that, He left them. You can understand the giddy excitement in Acts 1:6. Here they all were, back in Jerusalem, surely now Jesus was going to restore the Kingdom. He'd defeated death, the Romans weren't going to be a problem. Let's get them. And then, Jesus leaves, up into the clouds. He'd promised never to leave His disciples, but now He'd gone again.

So did Jesus break His promise? I think one of the patterns i'm noticing more and more in the Bible, particularly in the Old Testament, is that when we don't understand what's going on, it's because something better than we can imagine is about to happen. Habbakuk didn't understand how God could use the Babylonians, but if God told Him what He as doing He wouldn't believe it. Ezra and Nehemiah struggled to lead the returning exiles, but there was a real, final, glorious exile coming.

So when Jesus did leave us, how did He keep His promise not to? By the Holy Spirit. One of the most affecting scenes in the Bible, must be when Jesus rises, and Mary wants to cling to Him. We understand Mary's response. We might not understand Jesus'. Don't cling to me, because i'm leaving soon, and this is better for everyone. How is it better if you go away again? Because when He goes away, the Holy Spirit's full ministry is unleashed. John 17 tells us that the Holy Spirit enables us to be part of the great intra-trinitarian love of God. One day the love that God the Father has for God the Son will be in us, because Jesus went away. It's better to have the Holy Spirit in us than Jesus next to us, because now Jesus is sat at the right hand of the Father praying for us, now the Holy Spirit lives in us to help us hate sin and fight for joy.

The Holy Spirit is the same kind of Helper, another Comforter. Jesus tells His disciples that He must go so that the Spirit can come. And this is how Jesus is always with us, this is how Jesus kept His promise. He's not just leading us around Judea, teaching and healing, He's physically, spiritually with us. He's with us by the Holy Spirit opening our hearts to His Word. He's with us by the Holy Spirit as we share our faith, with us as we battle sin and fear. With us in a much better and more effectual way.

So Jesus did leave us, but He's always with us. Jesus did go, but the Holy Spirit came, and in God's glorious economy, that's serves our good, and His glory...