The law of gravity dictates that what goes up must come down. Throw an object into the sky and before long, it returns to the ground. As a young child, though, I was always intrigued by the different speeds of return. Throw a feather up and it floats to the ground. Throw a rock up, and if youre not careful, it will hit you right in the head before youve had a chance to get out of the way. And while all objects have a different rate of return to earth, there are none that can defy gravity.

But Jesus ascension defied the law of gravity. He went up, and He did not come down. He stayed up. He stayed up in heaven. The crowd watched Him go up, and they waited for Him to come down. They assumed the law of gravity would apply to Jesus, just as it applied to everything else. They had never...