The Lord’s Ascension

Mark 16:15-20

Dear Jesus,

It is easy to get caught up in fantasy, to let my imagination run wild as I imagine being there the day you returned to your place at the Father’s right hand. Triumphal scenes are like that. In the wonder I can forget the surroundings, the day-by-day grind that is normal life and revel in the escape the images provide. Everything is done. The enemy has been vanquished. All those things that mortals fear have lost their power through the wonders of your dying and rising. Let me just bask in the glory. I can almost hear the brass choir that accompanies the moment of lift off and comes to the ultimate crescendo as the clouds envelope you. It is not hard to imagine myself gawking at the afterglow, frozen in the moment.

Do you smile as you read my words and so confess my desire to escape? Or are you chiding me, wondering if I will ever get the point? Thank you for being patient with my frailty. I forget that you promise empowering when the Spirit comes which implies that there is work to be done that requires strength beyond that that is native to humankind. That work won’t be done until time runs its course and your return to claim the kingdom. I begin to understand that if I see your ascension as a static moment accomplished at a specific moment in time once and for all I mistake what is happening. All your actions escape the boundaries of time. Your dying and rising go on through every age. We renew them and are challenged to enter them each time your faithful ones stand at the Table to break the Bread and share the Cup. You don’t die over and over again. Nor do you rise over and over again. It is all ongoing. And isn’t it that way with your ascension? Shouldn’t I think of the action as ongoing to be experienced by the church in each moment of every day? Aren’t you asking that we embrace all of this and see what we do in union with you, empowered by the Spirit as hastening the day of your return, the completion of all things in you?

It would be easier to live a life of faith if the two worlds could be kept separate – the realm of faith from the ordinary humdrumness of day-by-day living. Those disciples looking up into the heavens after you probably felt that way too. If they just kept staring upward maybe the rest would just go away. Maybe if they kept their eyes on the last point where they had seen you they could forget about having to go on without the expectation of your visiting them again along The Way. But that’s not right either because you said that you were not leaving your followers but would be with us until the end. So, does it have to do with where we are to look in order to see you?

Sometimes I think I should not read the newspapers or watch the evening news. It would be easier. Each day’s stories seem to exceed those of the day before in pathos and horror. The war and its justification, the decline in support for the poor and their medical needs, their housing and food, the abuse of the young and the ignoring of the aged, who can read these stories and be able to sleep at night? Today I heard about three teenagers who beat a man to death and others who kicked and pummeled a youngster because of his race. What can I do about any of this? Wouldn’t it be easier if I ignored the news and focused on the sky peaceful in my union with you?

Even as I wrote those last words I sensed your beginning to shake your finger at me, chiding me for missing the point again. Are you saying to me that as I begin to understand about your dying, rising and ascending and my participation in those ongoing transitions, I will begin to see that if I am a believer I must be in the midst of the suffering feeling as St. Paul did that I am a prisoner for you. My witness has to be practical and I have to touch the poor and the suffering and the disenfranchised and those deemed by society as untouchable worthy only for off-scouring. I don’t have to do it all, tempted to see myself as the savior of the world. The Spirit you give gives different gifts to individuals so that working together the needs of all can be met. Our collective witness to your Gospel will be powerful in the face of those who call for war. And when those from our number bind up the wounds of those who are beaten and weep with those who mourn for their dead, we will all be caught up in your ascending and healing will begin.

Is that what the Ascension is about? Are you saying that it has nothing to do with the world’s trappings of power and material success but rather everything to do with humble service, living the lessons learned when we walked in your footsteps and watched over your shoulder? And believing that your promise will be fulfilled?

Sincerely,

Didymus