Acts 1:9

Acts 1:9. He was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. When the last words had been spoken, while in the act of blessing them (Luke 24:51), the disciples of Jesus saw their Master lifted up from the ground; and as He rose, a cloud passed under Him the bright cloud of glory which overshadowed Him on the Mount of Transfiguration, and which, in the wilderness journeys of Israel, now like a fire pillar, now like a cloud pillar, sailed through the air before the people as their guide. On this ‘royal chariot' as Chrysostom calls it did the eternal Son of God ascend from earth to the heaven of heavens. ‘The ascension of Elijah,' writes Baumgarten, ‘may be compared to the flight of a bird, which none can follow; the ascension of Christ is as it were a bridge between earth and heaven, laid down for all who are drawn to Him by His earthly existence,'