'When the apostles had come together, they asked Jesus, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When he had said this, 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. When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying, Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.'
--Acts 1: 6-14
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 friezes narrating various scenes in the Bible. When you reach the end of the Gospels you see the faces of the apostles looking upward, and then all you see at the top are a pair of feet dangling there. It’s totally adorable!
An icon of the Ascension, not unlike the frieze at Guardian Angel Church
In our reading for this week we hear the very beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, which is a slightly different retelling of the end of the Gospel of Luke – the two texts being written by the same author. The moment depicted in this reading, and in that frieze on the edge of the roof of Guardian Angel Church, is the Ascension, the moment when Jesus left this earthly plain and returned to the presence of God, which as Jesus says in the Gospel of John, he was in before the world even existed (John 17: 5). The Feast of the Ascension always falls on a Thursday, 40 days after Easter Sunday. We often mark it at our Wednesday Healing Eucharist, as we did this week, but the Church also includes the story from Acts on the final Sunday of Eastertide so that those of us unable to make midweek worship services could still commemorate the solemnity of the feast.
This is a bit of a weird time if we think about it liturgically and theologically. The Ascension has happened but Pentecost hasn’t yet. We’re in a liminal time. The in-between time. Jesus’ earthly ministry has ended, but the Holy Spirit hasn’t yet moved the apostles to proclaim the Good News themselves because, frankly, they’re not ready to receive yet. We know that they will; after all, we wouldn’t be showing up to our churches on Sundays, nor would I be doing this blog, if the Holy Spirit hadn’t shown up on that day of Pentecost, but the wonderful thing about being a church rooted in liturgical tradition and the various seasons and observances of the ecclesiastical year, is that, despite knowing what’s coming next week, we are invited and encouraged to just sit with where we are now. Think back to Holy Week, to the invitation from each of the days of the Paschal Triduum to just sit and be present in the moment. Sure, we knew the Resurrection was coming, but to just be present and feel the feels of each day and value them for what they were – washing feet and stripping the altar, praying at the foot of the cross, sitting in the darkness moments before Easter’s dawn – that was some powerful stuff because those moments helped us remember that where we are now still holds as much value as where we will be. The truth is that we too often have our minds fixed on what is on the horizon, rather than the present moment. And this week is no different. During this liminal period – between the Ascension and Pentecost – what would it mean for us to ponder the apostles’ thoughts and feelings? And our own?
Picture the scene: the eleven standing with Jesus as he’s talking on the Mount of Olives, and then suddenly there he goes. And they’re just…standing there. Mouths gaped open. What now?! It takes two men in white – they always wear white, don’t they? – to tell them to stop standing there, watching Jesus’ feet go into the clouds, and go back into the city. Go back into the messiness, the political and religious volatility from which they’d hoped Jesus would save them. Can you imagine what that walk back into the city and that little apartment must’ve been like? “What was THAT?!” “Who were THEY?!” “So….is that it?!” “Anybody write that down?!” “What did he say again?!” A lot of confusion. A lot of fear. A lot of uncertainty about what was to come. Who could blame them for just wanting to stay on that mount, staring up into heaven? C’mon, Jesus! Come on back. The world is scary and cruel. We can’t do it alone.
The world isn’t THAT much different now from then. I see church signs and billboards crying out for Jesus to come back. Yet while this sentiment is understandable, it’s entirely spiritually immature. Jesus’ leaving was the necessary preliminary for all future progress in humanity’s spiritual life, so that – the apostles first, and then the rest of us – would stop holding on to Jesus’ physical, external presence, and find his presence and strength inside themselves. His Ascension, then, was the blessing that allowed them to receive the Spirit, painful though the separation might have been.
And while we know that the Holy Spirit will come next Sunday – and with her the “Acts of the Apostles” can truly begin – this in-between time of waiting must have been hard. So, in it we actually have a divine lesson in delayed gratification. It’s one of the first lessons we learn as children – you can’t always get what you want when you want it. Do you remember what that was like? If not, do you remember watching your kids when they didn’t get what they wanted when they wanted it? I barely remember the time my grandparents took me to Disney World when I was five, but I’m told that I was asking if we were there yet before we were out of their hometown of Bristol, let alone the state of Virginia. They say patience is a virtue, but it has never been mine! Yet that is the gift God gave the apostles before the greater gift of the Spirit’s coming amongst them: the patience to wait, to listen, to feel the discomfort of the liminal time, and to just be, wherever they were, wherever we are. It is so very often in these moments God is most stirring, even if we don’t notice.
The world is often in a hurry and wants everyone to be in a hurry. We do it with deadlines that are set for us or tasks that demand our efforts. We do it with the Jesus, too. Hurry up and get here already and fix this! But like the apostles, we are called to stop looking up into heaven, to return to our places of liminality, the places of stillness and quiet, and to wait patiently for the Spirit to show up and do her thing.
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