After the lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.
—Mark 16:19-20
The simplicity of Mark’s final words should not deflect our attention away from what actually happened. Usually, when the leader of a movement is killed, the movement begins to lose power. The followers, confused and afraid, scatter, and within a short time, little is left except the memory of what might have been.
But with Jesus, an extraordinary reversal of ordinary expectations took place. After Jesus was taken up to heaven to sit at the right hand of God, the disciples were emboldened. They began to preach and build the church. Mark says, “the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.” The new kingdom began to form, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, the kingdom builders began to spread throughout Jerusalem and “in all of Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
—Eric Kampmann, Getting To Know Jesus