Blessing, Ascension, Joy, and the Temple: Luke Hands the Story to Acts

Jesus leads the disciples toward Bethany, blesses them, is carried up into heaven, and leaves them worshiping with great joy. They return to Jerusalem and remain continually in the temple praising and blessing God.

Where this fits in the story: Luke ends where his Gospel began—with the temple—but everything has changed. The promised Messiah has suffered and risen, witnesses are commissioned, and the story now waits for heavenly power.

Acts explicitly resumes this ending: the former treatise gives way to the continuing work of the ascended Jesus through the Holy Ghost and his witnesses from Jerusalem outward.