"When Jesus had said this [and told the apostles that they would be his witnesses], as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, 'Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.' Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day's journey away."
--Acts 1: 9-12
At the intersection of 10th
Avenue and 20th Street in New York City is the Church of the
Guardian Angel. All along the edge of the roof are frescos narrating various scenes
in the Bible. When you reach the end of
the Gospels you see the faces of the apostles looking upward, and all you
see at the top are a pair of feet dangling there. It’s totally adorable--one of my favorite depictions of the Ascension!
Depiction of the Ascension by Kulmbach (1521). This is not the one at Guardian Angel Church, but note the feet at the top.
I told y’all last week I would be
posting on the Ascension, and I’m a man of my word! The Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord Jesus
Christ takes place 40 days after Easter Sunday, always falling on a Thursday, which means many church only get to remember it on the following Sunday. It’s a high holy day on our
calendar, when we celebrate that scene in the fresco where Jesus goes back up
into heaven, back to glory and majesty, and the apostles stand there looking at his feet.
But then what happens? Out of
nowhere, as the apostles are gazing toward heaven, watching Jesus go with their
mouths gaped open, two men in white robes—presumably angels—grab their
attention. “Men of Galilee,” they say,
“why do you stand looking up toward heaven?”
And after that call back to reality, Luke tells us the apostles returned
to Jerusalem and devoted their time to praying together.
But they needed to be called
back. The angels might as well have
said, “Don’t just stand there, do something!”
Jesus has gone back to heaven, now what are you gonna do about it? They wanted to preserve the moment. They likely would’ve been content to just
keep staring at the soles of Jesus’ feet as the clouds overtook him. But this is not what Jesus wanted. He never asked his followers to focus all
their attention on admiring him. Instead
he called them into action, over and over again. Even now, in this moment as they watch him go
into heaven, the apostles need to be reminded of that. Stop staring! Go and put everything you have
witnessed into action!
Sometimes we modern followers of Jesus fall into
the same trap as the apostles. We stare
up at the sky and wait on Jesus, forgetting that he has empowered us to do the work that he began; that is, sharing the
Good News that the kingdom of God is here right now. I suspect this has something to do with the fact that we are unable to remember our unity with God. It is that very unity for which Jesus prays in the Fourth Gospel:
"'And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.'”
--John 17: 11
Alone in the garden, waiting for his arrest and eventual death, Jesus prays to God the Father on behalf of those whom he says are "in the world." He prays that God will protect them and that
they may be one as Jesus and God are one.
That oneness isn’t about following the same doctrine or always agreeing
on certain issues. It means knowing in
their souls that God is in them, the same way Jesus knew God was in him. Such a prayer was not just for those 12 who
were called apostles by Jesus, nor was it simply the hundreds who followed him day after day. That prayer is for every man, woman, and child trudging through this dark and difficult world. It is for you, me, and them! He knew where he was going, so he prayed that the rest of us would remember our unity with God, that God is in us, and if God is in us then we can do even greater things
than Jesus himself did. Those aren't my words, they're Jesus':
"'Very truly I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do, and in fact, will do greater works than these because I am going to the Father.'"
--John 14: 12
But we forget this, don’t we? We forget that oneness, and we end up petering out. Eventually we just throw our hands up, look into the sky, and wait around. When we remember that we are one with God, though, we also remember, as
Teresa of Avila said back in the 16th century: “Christ has no body but ours. No hands or feet on earth but ours. Ours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion upon this world.” Teresa got it all those years ago! She knew that it's up to us to be Jesus to others, to be active with our faith. This leads us to pray
together, as the apostles did after the Ascension, and to work together to feed the hungry and
clothe the naked and preach Good News to the poor and outcast, as they did. Hers was (and still is) a call to be mindful, day in and day out, that we
are one with God.
Teresa of Avila, 16th century Carmelite nun who reminds us all that Christ has no hands or feet but ours.
A while back, amidst all of the
chaos of our social and political climate, I saw a few Facebook posts from
folks saying things like, “We need to pray for Jesus to come back and fix all
of this!” No!! That’s not how this
Christianity thing works! If you’re
unhappy with the way the world is operating, pray about it, and then go put your prayer into action. That's what the apostles did! That's what the early Church was all about, putting prayer into action. The Church is still about this. This is why we, as the Church, exist! We are still the community of Christ. We are his hands and feet. We are his compassion, meant to be shared
with the world. We are not passive. We may be waiting expectantly FOR Jesus to return, but we
not waiting ON Jesus to fix everything; after all, he has prayed for all of us
that we may be one with God, and if we are one with God then there is nothing
that will stop us from transforming this world with God’s redemptive love
working through our own hands,feet, and hearts!
We dare not forget, brothers and sisters! We dare not forget that Jesus’ prayer that
night in the Garden was for us. We dare
not stand around and wait. Let’s get out
there and be Jesus for our time, just as the apostles were in their time. Don’t just stand there. Let’s do something!