Lk.24:49 – And behold, I am sending the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.

You would think that all the disciples had seen and heard by now would be enough, apparently it wasn’t. They had seen a river of miracles over the last three years, now they were witnesses of the resurrection. Now this wasn’t the first time they had seen dead people walking around; there had been the boy from Nain, Jairus’ daughter, and more recently Lazarus. This was different. Jesus body was different, it was physical well enough but there was an unexplainable glory about it, this was the first of a new race of beings with bodies like this one that would never die. Even with all of that they were not quite ready, there was still something else. Here is how Augustine describes this.

“They certainly saw, touched and felt him. They confirmed their faith by looking at him and touching him. They accompanied him with their gaze as he ascended into heaven. With attentive ears, they heard the angel’s voice assuring them and foretelling that Christ would come again. All these things were completed for them. Neither sight alone nor handling of the Lord’s limbs was still enough to ensure that they would become witnesses of Christ and bravely endure everything for the preaching of the truth, fighting against falsehood even to the shedding of their blood. Who gave them such a capability? Listen to the Lord himself. “Stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” “You have seen and touched, but you are still not able to preach and die for what you have seen and touched, until you are clothed with power from on high. Let human beings go now and attribute it to their own powers, if they can do anything. There was Peter, and he had not yet been confirmed in the rock. He had not yet been clothed with power from on high, because “nobody can receive anything, unless it has been given him from heaven.”

This was the long awaited moment, the reason Jesus had come. The believer’s would be immersed into God, the Holy Spirit baptism would change everything. The Lord told the disciples to wait until they were clothed with power from on high. When that happened they would receive power to go out into the world and have a ministry like Jesus. It was the power of God dispersed on the Day of Pentecost that literally turned the world upside down.