I. The first thing that strikes me about them is that wonderful
thought of the gain to Christ's servants from Christ's departure. 'It
is expedient for you that I go away.'

I need not enlarge here upon what we have had frequent occasion to
remark, the manner in which our Lord here represents the complex
whole of His death and ascension as being His own voluntary act. He
'goes.' He is neither taken away by death nor rapt up to heaven in a
whirlwind, but of His own exuberant power and by His own will He goes
into the region of the grave and thence to the throne. Contrast the
story of His ascension with that Old Testament story of the ascension
of Elijah. One needed the chariot of fire and the horses of fire to
bear him up into the sphere, all foreign to his mortal and earthly
manhood; the Other needed no outward power to lift Him, nor any
vehicle to carry Him from this dim spot which men call earth, but
slowly, serenely, upborne by His own indwelling energy, and rising as
to His native home, He ascended up on high, and went where the very
manner of His going proclaimed that He had been before. 'If _I go_
away, I will send Him.'

But that is a digression. What we are concerned with now is the
thought of Christ's departure as being a step in advance, and a
positive gain, even to those poor, bewildered men who were clustering
round Him, depending absolutely upon Himself, and feeling themselves
orphaned and helpless without Him.

Now if we would feel the full force and singularity of this saying of
our Lord's, let us put side by side with it that other one, 'I have a
desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better.
Nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.' Why is