The Ascension and the Return

Forty days after He arose from the dead, Jesus ascended into Heaven before His disciples.  Following is that event depicted by an unknown illustrator.

Here is the ascension by Rembrandt:

He told His disciples to stay in Jerusalem until He sent them the Holy Spirit.   Ten days after His ascension, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to His followers on the holy day of Pentecost.  The Spirit came with the sound of a rushing wind and appeared as tongues of fire resting on the disciples.  Here is that event as painted by El Greco:

By the power of the Holy Spirit, the Church grew.  It was soon being persecuted by the Jewish leaders who had murdered Jesus.  One of the most zealous of the persecuters was a man named Saul.  As Saul was riding on the road to Damascus to persecute the Christians there, he was knocked from his horse and blinded by the light of the Lord Jesus, who spoke to him.  He became a Christian and changed his name to Paul.  Here is The Conversion of St. Paul by Caravaggio:

To help those hungry for knowledge about Jesus, the story of His ministry was written down.  Matthew was one of the twelve chief disciples of Jesus and he wrote a Gospel.   Here is St. Matthew and the Angel (unfortunately not in color) by Caravaggio:

In the end, mankind will become worse and worse until they become so wicked that they must be destroyed, just as when God destroyed the world with a flood.  This time the destruction will be by fire.  Here is a depiction of it by Thomas Cole.

Then Jesus will appear from Heaven with all the angels

The dead shall be raised and all shall be judged for what they have done.  Some shall enter into bliss with Jesus, and others shall be left outside to weep and wail.

Here is The Last Judgment by Rubens:

So now we wait and pray "Maranatha"--"Our Lord, come."  Click on the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, to return to the beginning page.