So where
is “up”?
“When
he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up,
and a cloud took him out of their sight.”
Well,
you might say "up" is up there, up in the sky, up in "the
heavens," up in Heaven. Of course, "up" means a different
direction to someone, say, in India. It's opposite from our "up."
And if their "up" is somehow perceived as more accurate than
ours, then we'd have to say "up" is really "down."
None of this would be debatable if you're a member of the Flat Earth
Society, and, I'm told, there are still 10,000 members of the Flat Earth
Society, and there's only one way that "up" is "up."
However I suspect that most of us accept the notion that the earth is
round and that "up" is relative.
Barbara
Brown Taylor saves us from this silliness by using the word "beyond"
to describe Christ's ascension-that Christ ascended beyond my vision,
beyond my space/time criteria, beyond my ability to "see"
him as he had been seen by his disciples. In point of fact, being aware
of the earth as round and being aware of the unimaginable vastness of
space makes the notion of Christ's ascension somehow beyond all that
and his invitation to join him there simply unutterably astounding.
In the
Book of Acts it tells us that two men with white robes (presumably angels)
ask the disciples why they are still looking up toward Heaven. In essence
they are told if you want to see Jesus don't look for him up there,
look for him when you look at each other. Remember that he said whenever
two or three of you are gathered in his name, he will be in your midst.
And remember that he told you that he would not abandon you (the King
James translation is "comfortless") and that the Holy Spirit
will come to make you the Church, to make you the Body of Christ in
the world.
And so
(in Barbara Brown Taylor's words),
Whenever two or three of them got together it was always as if there
were someone else in the room with them whom they could not see-a strong,
abiding presence of the absent one as available to them as bread and
wine, as familiar to them as each other's faces. It was almost as if
he had not ascended but exploded, so that all the holiness that was
once concentrated in him alone flew everywhere, few far and wide, so
that the seeds of heaven were sown in all fields of the earth.
We go
to church to worship, to acknowledge the Lord's absence and to seek
the Lord's presence, to sing and to pray, to be silent and to be still,
to hold out the empty cups of our hands and to be filled with bread,
with wine, with the abiding presence of the absent Lord until he comes
again. Do you miss him sometimes? Do you long for assurance that you
have not been left behind? Then why do you stand looking up toward heaven?
Look around you, look around.
Amen.
