Growing up, I heard a lot about going. Because that was the commission, the charge, the challenge. In the last words of Jesus to his disciples before his ascension, there was a mission for them and by extension for us. Go and make disciples. 

I was looking at the text recently and realized that the last words are not “go”. The last words are “I am with you always.” 

It could have been, go and do the thing I tell you, come back and we’ll see if I’m happy with you, if you did it right. 

What Jesus said was, “I’m with you. All the time.”

As we live out what it means to follow, which is a better way to teach than lecturing, “with you always.” As we teach how to obey by obeying, “with you always.” As we wrestle with understanding, with questions, with pain, “with you always.”

I’m not sure where you are this morning, what your week is looking like, what your weekend has been like. But I do remember what Jesus said about it. “With you always.”