Did you notice that all of today’s readings are from the New Testament, and all of them point the way to a transformation in our relationship with Jesus Christ. All three refer to Ascension and to the liminal time of waiting for the Holy Spirit.

“Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up to heaven?” Is this where we somehow got the idea that heaven is “up there,” like a “beam me up Scottie” moment from Star Trek? A closer listening tells us that Jesus withdrew from their vision and was taken up into heaven. He withdraws from their vision but not from their presence.

When I came to Canada at the age of 22, my parents drove me down to Heathrow Airport to see me off. They told me afterwards that after I went through the departure gate, they went up to the viewing tower and waited until my plane took off. This was a practice that was repeated in my family over the years as we would travel back and forth. Watching from a distance as an airplane carrying our loved one took off and not knowing when we would see each other again. Waiting until the airplane disappeared from sight.

It must have been something like this for the disciples, I think. Since the resurrection, Jesus has been appearing and disappearing, and re-appearing somewhere else, almost like a game of “now you see me, now you don’t”. They have been living in liminal time: that time between what was familiar to them and the new reality that is not yet.  We, too. of course, are living in liminal time, so we may have some sense of what they were experiencing.

Jesus is preparing them for a new reality, and he gives them glimpses of what that is going to look like. He tells them that he will continue to be with them but not in the way they are used to. He tells them that they will be his witnesses in the world, but they can’t do it on their own, they are to wait until they are clothed in power from on high. In the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we hear how they watched as Jesus was taken from their sight. Was it a “disappearing act” or a shift in their perception?  Certainly, they were no longer able to see him with their eyes, but perhaps Jesus was teaching them new ways of seeing.  In Antoine De Saint Exupery’s beautiful story of The Little Prince, there is a wonderful line, “It is only with the heart that one sees rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye”. The meaning of this quote as I understand it, is that the heart symbolizes the soul or the spirit, or one’s moral compass, enabling us to see what truly matters in life. I think that Jesus is trying to tell them (and us) that we are to “see” him with the eyes of the heart, with eyes of faith.

This is the shift that is taking place as the disciples stare up at the sky. They have to let go of Jesus as they have known him. They have no choice, really, but he has prepared them well, and they have been told that they must wait, and they will be empowered to carry out the mission that has been entrusted to them.  They will receive the Spirit of wisdom and revelation as they come to know him, so that with the eyes of their hearts enlightened, they may know the hope to which they are called.

These words that we have heard today are for us too. Life as we have known it is fading from our visual sight; we are to wait until we receive the power of the Holy Spirit, which will empower us for the next stage. And while we wait, we are in liminal time. And in liminal time we are being asked to let go, as individuals, and as a faith community.

What are we being asked to let go of on this feast of the Ascension?  For some, it is the physical presence of a loved one, for others, giving up independent living, and for others, the loss that comes with a life shift, such as a health issue. For all of us at this time, we are being asked to let go of church in some of the ways we have known and experienced it and be open to new ways that the Spirit may be leading us. None of us knows exactly what the future holds, but we do know who holds the future.

The Ascension is not about Jesus leaving us; rather, it is Jesus empowering us with the Spirit, so that we are able to do God’s work in the world. We no longer need to gaze at the sky to find Jesus, we can find him in one another and in our community of faith.  Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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