For forty days after his Resurrection, Jesus appeared time after time to His disciples to assure them of two things: (1) he had truly risen from the dead and (2) they were to carry on the work that
he began during His public ministry.
Jesus’ ascension into heaven was both an end and a beginning for His disciples—the end of Jesus’ physical presence with them, but the beginning of his presence with them in a new way. Remember, He promised that He would be with them always to the end of time and part of that promise was to give them the power of His Holy Spirit, which we will see “fulfilled” next Sunday on the Feast of Pentecost. The disciples were not being abandoned.
When Jesus physically departed, Mark tells us His last words were, “Go into the world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.” Those words were meant for us as well because we have all been given this task to share—to proclaim the good news. We can rely on the power of the Spirit to accomplish our mission as well.
So the message today is clear: Jesus wants us to finish what He began. Our faith tells us that our task to proclaim the Gospel to every creature is something that we can do because Jesus’ presence is always with us. We can do it where we are; with those we meet, with those we work with, with those we go to school with, etc. Our call is to be a witness for Jesus in our lives—more by what we do than what we say.