THE  ASCENSION.  

This great event in the Christian calendar falls on a week day, Thursday, so is often overlooked.   Nevertheless, it is a very important one.
We are now drawing near to the completion of Jesus’s mission for our salvation which began at Christmas, leading on to the Cross of Good Friday and then his Resurrection on that first Easter Day.    Then for the next forty days He met with His followers and many others encouraging them and teaching them.
He gave them several commands and promises.
‘All authority has been given to Me.   Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”
He promised He would be with them always until the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18ff).  This was His directive to His infant Church to go out and tell others the glorious Good News of the Gospel  - that belief in Him brings forgiveness of our sins and the power to resist sin in our day to day lives, so becoming  changed persons  in Christ.
Another command was, “ Do not leave Jerusalem but wait for the gift my Father has promised, which you have heard me speak about.” {Acts 1:4}

Then time was up and it was time to say goodbye  - as He rose from the earth, until covered by a cloud, He returned to the glory of Heaven.
He had come from heaven as the Eternal Word and returned to heaven as the Incarnate Word, taking His humanity with Him into the God Head, pure and undefiled.  
To the watchers,  there appeared a man in white, saying, “This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen  Him go into Heaven.”  {Acts 1:11b.]
We still await that great day!
Jesus is now seated at the right hand of God, in glory with the Father, where He reigns and rules over us.
As the knights of old knelt before their liege lords on their swords and avowed their allegiance, so we kneel and pledge our love and loyalty to our Lord Jesus Christ, Who reigns supreme, Who loves us and gave Himself for us.
“See Him, Who has gone before us,  Heavenly mansions to prepare,
        See Him, Who is ever pleading for us with prevailing prayer,
       See Him with sound of trumpet and with angelic train
  Summoning the world to Judgment, on the clouds will come again.”
                                                                                        Bishop C. Wordsworth.