Jesus Goes Back Up to Heaven

Hello Friends,

School is in session… one week down several to go! (How many days until Christmas Vacation?!) How was your first week back to school? Are you excited to be back: to see your friends, to learn new things, and to create memories? The first week of school for me was always stressful: trying to get adjusted to a new routine, making sure I had all my school supplies, trying to remind myself of when and where my classes were, and making sure I budget enough time in between classes to grab my things and to take a small break. After the first week, things started to fall into place and I enjoyed being back in school! So if the first week seemed stressful and overwhelming, just remember to hang in there and don’t give up.

This Sunday at Church, we ended our summer sermon series on asking questions about heaven. Over the course of several weeks we explored what heaven may be like, wondered what people in heaven see when they look down on us on earth, pondered if there will be scars in heaven, contemplated if our pets will be in heaven, thought about what we need to do to get to heaven, and we ended by reminding ourselves to be curious about things we don’t know about heaven. Ultimately, we can’t know everything there is about heaven while we live on this earth. But, one day, when our time comes to meet Jesus face-to-face and we see our pets again, we will be able to ask Jesus all of our questions and he will answer them. So keep asking those questions!

To close our study of heaven, I thought it would be fitting to end with the story of Jesus ascending–going back up–to heaven. The Bible tells us that Jesus stayed on Earth for 40 days after God raised him from the dead. During that time, he talked with his disciples, proving to them that he really was alive, and kept teaching them about God and his Kingdom. He even ate fish with them!

When it was almost to the end of the 40 days, Jesus was eating with His disciples, and He said, “Don’t leave Jerusalem until you receive the Holy Spirit. He is a gift that God promised to give you, and you’ve heard me talk about Him. He’s going to come to you in just a few more days.” His disciples asked him, “Are you going to kick the Romans out of Israel and give us back our country now? We’re tired of having the Romans rule over us.”

But Jesus said, “You don’t need to know when God is going to give you back your kingdom. Just wait until the Holy Spirit comes down. The Holy Spirit will give you power so that you will be able to tell everyone about me. I want you to tell the people in this country and the people all over the world all the things I taught you about God and about how I died and took the punishment for their sins so that they could be forgiven.” After Jesus said this, he floated up into the sky on a cloud. He floated so high that he went into the clouds, and the disciples couldn’t see Him anywhere.

The disciples were still looking up into the sky when suddenly, two angels appeared beside them. They said, “Men, why are you looking up into the sky? Jesus, who you just saw being taken up into Heaven, will come back down from Heaven someday.”

Jesus was going back to Heaven to be with God. Jesus lived in Heaven with God before he was born as a human baby. Because his work of teaching us and dying for us on the cross was over, Jesus went back to Heaven, but he will come back down to earth.

Why do you think Jesus is going to come back? Jesus is going to do a lot of things when he comes back, but mainly he’s coming to make this world a better place. When Jesus comes back, he will bring everyone who believes in him back to life, and they will die never again. When Jesus comes back, he will make our bodies so healthy that none of us will ever get sick again. When Jesus comes back, no one will ever be sad again because Jesus will make it so that nothing bad ever happens again. When Jesus comes back, no one will ever do anything wrong again. Jesus will put the devil in Hell forever, and he will make us to be perfect so that no one will do anything wrong ever again. When Jesus comes back, all the animals will be nice. They’ll all eat plants and not hunt each other. And you’ll be able to go up and pet your favorite animals. Even if they’re dangerous now, Jesus will make it so that they’re nice when he comes back. And Jesus will do one more thing when he comes back. I said that he will send the devil to Hell forever. He will also send everyone who doesn’t believe in God to Hell. That’s why we have to do our best to make sure we’re doing what God wants and telling other people about Him so that they can live with Jesus.

You see, Jesus needed to go back to heaven so that we can better learn to live like him on earth, so that when he returns–comes back to earth–we will be ready and know that we will be able to live with him. It’s sort of like that first week of school: things are chaotic and busy until we get the hang of things. As we learn to live like Christ while Christ is in heaven, things will get a little easier and we will understand what needs to be done. Until he returns, we will continually be trying to figure things out!

Let us pray: Jesus, we thank you for coming to teach us and to die on the cross to take the punishment for our sins. Help us to believe in you until you come back and make the world the way it’s supposed to be. Amen.

Your Friend, Holy Spirit!

Lesson borrowed from: https://ministry-to-children.com/lesson-the-ascension-jesus-goes-back-up-to-heaven/