Jesus did not ascend directly to heaven after the resurrection because he needed to ensure with proofs that all knew he was alive, and he needed to ensure that His disciples would be witnesses of his salvation starting from Jerusalem and to the ends of the earth. One may wonder why he didn’t go up immediately to heaven. The resurrected Christ was in a period of transition.  He was not preaching new things but rather offered his peace to the disciples. His interactions were short but at the same time they were comforting and reaffirming that he had risen from the dead.  Until the day he was taken up, He ensured that all knew what had happened. He died for the salvation of the world, but also, he rose to open the gates of paradise to all who believe in him.  This transition as Risen Lord was necessary to increase the faith and make the disciples ready for the mission by giving them specific instructions.  But Jesus had also promised that he would go and prepare a place for all who believed in Him at His Father’s house.  He ascended into heaven in glory and splendor at the sound of the trumpet blast to prepare a room in heaven for those saved.  He also needed to ascend to fulfill his other promise, that is the sending of the Holy Spirit so the disciples would have the power to witness.  As seen in the passage of the Ascension in the Acts of the Apostles, the disciples still did not get it.  The Lord was ready to ascend, and they were still focused on the restoration of the kingdom of Israel in an earthly fashion.  They still thought Jesus was an earthly messiah, who would free them from the oppression of the Romans.  Jesus makes it clear he is talking about the salvation of all and is not worried they did not understand fully the mission, because it was precisely the Holy Spirit who would come upon them to enlighten their mind to help them figure out what the mission truly was and so become truly effective witnesses.    Jesus needed to go, for the Spirit to come to help the disciples understand everything that had happened and impelled them to go out through the world spreading the Good News.  Without Ascension there is no Pentecost.  Jesus had done all things well and had instructed the disciples as far as he could in his teaching, now the promise of the Father was going to come upon them so they could start witnessing.   There are two dangers with the Ascension. One, to stand there just looking at the sky waiting for the Lord to come back just like the disciples did.  Inaction is a danger.  People are just waiting for it all to end and are not making any difference in their immediate surroundings.  It will be awesome sight when Jesus comes back again in the same way He went up but, in the meantime, get to work, become a witness guided by the Holy Spirit.   The second danger is to feel separated from Jesus. As the preface of the Ascension reminds, he did not ascend to separate Himself, “not to distance Himself from our lowly state but that we, his members, might be confident of following where he, our Head and Founder, has gone before” and he did not leave us stranded.   He continues to bless us and to give the joy of the Holy Spirit to fulfill his mission until we meet again in person in heaven in the house of the Heavenly Father.  When joy is felt in witnessing, his presence is there and will continue to be there until the end of the times.