On the heels of the amazing events of Jesus cruxifixction and resurrection, He spent 40 days instructing His followers concerning things associated with the kingdom of God. At the end of that period of time, He ascended into heaven while His followers watched from the top of the Mount of Olives just east of Jerusalem. Now, for the first time, the disciples were left on their own. Jesus would no longer be with them physically. He had passed the baton of His ministry to them to accomplish. He had trained them for three years. They had watched Him closely, questioned Him throughly and been given opportunities to get their feet wet with delegated assignments along the way. And now, they were given an incredible ‘commission’ to multiply His impact by helping others follow Christ with all of their hearts, minds, souls, and strength.
I would imagine that this ‘great commission’ was both exciting and terrifying. It was probably exciting because they could invest in others what had been invested in them and what had radically changed their lives. They had come to love Jesus deeply and had come to believe that He was actually Messiah, God [Himself] who took on our humanity, yet without corruption. At the same time, I would think they were terrified by the responsibility that was in fact a God sized responsibility. Not only was the world a big place but it was a profoundly broken place with a large group who not only mocked the things of Christ but were committed to destroying this new movement of people proclaiming Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the Life.
In fact, Jesus knew that the job was impossible unless He was with them. However, He had taken human form for the rest of eternity. He could not be with each and every one of His followers to comfort them, to instruct them, to empower them and to encourage them. He had to take His place at the right hand of His Father and wait to return at some future point in time, a return that would be in that same physical body. Therefore, He sent the Holy Spirit to accompany this new community of believers… to comfort them, to instruct them, to empower them and to encourage them. The same immanence that Jesus had displayed with His people would now be true with the Holy Spirit. The disciples would not be alone after all. God, the Holy Spirit, would be with them and, in fact, He would be in them. He would seal them for the future. He would set them apart for the work of God both in them and around them. He would be a guarantee of their future place in the kingdom.
If that is the case, then we ought to understand more fully who He is, where He came from, what He does and how can we relate to Him. That is what the next seven weeks will be all about.