From then onwards no place and no part of life has been distant from him.  That was the sure ground of his final promise to his Apostles on Ascension Day, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me…And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (NRSV, Matthew 28:18,20).

That eternal world to which he then returned was the same as that from which he had come when he was born in Bethlehem.  Or, as he himself put it on Maundy Thursday evening, “I came from the Father and have come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and am going to the Father” (NRSV, John 16:28).

But he went back with his Ascended human Body, the same Body in which he had been offered to the Father by old Simeon in the Temple; the same Body in which he offered himself to his Father on the Cross for the world’s salvation – an offering which was invested with this tremendous meaning at the Last Supper the night before when he took the bread and wine saying, “This is my body, which is given for you”.  “…this is my blood…which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (NRSV, Luke 22:19; Matthew 26:28, our emphasis).