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Imagine what it must have been like when Jesus ascended into heaven two thousand years ago.
Just a few weeks earlier, the apostles, fearing for their lives, had scattered at Gethsemane. Peter denied that he even knew Jesus, and many who had hailed Jesus as the coming king were now crying out, “Crucify him!”
When Jesus rose, the apostles were overjoyed at seeing him again, but they were still ill prepared for the task of preaching the gospel and building the church. They didn’t have any catechism or papal encyclicals to guide them. They had no church buildings, no retreat centers, and no canon law. They were pioneers on a brand new venture. All they had to draw on were their memories of Jesus and the promise of something new happening around Pentecost. If they had the ability to make computerized projections for the survival of this fledgling church, they would probably have been too overwhelmed…
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