The Ascension story, as told in Acts, makes me chuckle as I picture the disciples “gazing up toward heaven,” watching the soles of Jesus’ feet disappear into the ether.
…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.”
Where is our gaze directed? Some people are said to be “so heavenly minded they are of no earthly good,” meaning, presumably, they are so focused on eternal life, on deepening their faith, they neglect the horizontal, missional dimension of the Christian walk. Such a consumer mentality can be found in modern churchgoers, seeking spiritual security. However, we can also become so wrapped up in doing “earthly good,” we lose the spiritual basis from which we are to meet needs and make justice – not for themselves alone, but because to do so reveals God’s love to the world.
It seems to me that the angels’ gentle rebuke is important for us as well. We are not to be looking for Jesus in the last place we saw him, or imagining him only in “some heaven, light years away” (as the lovely hymn, “Gather Us In” puts it). For he also told his followers they would see him in the hungry and naked, the sick and incarcerated, in the bread and wine of communion, in any place the Holy Spirit is discernible. He told them to go out and bear witness to his love and power “to the ends of the earth.” You can’t walk to the ends of the earth if your gaze is turned upwards – you will soon trip and fall or knock somebody over (neither pitfall exactly uncommon for Christians…).
The call to a dual focus – fixing our eyes on Jesus, and looking outward to the world for which he lived, died and rose again – is reflected in our dual callings, to be both his disciples and his apostles. As disciples we grow as we invest our time and energy strengthening our relationship with him. As apostles, we follow his lead, training our vision to those places Jesus directs us to look, where he has fixed his loving gaze. One is a more contemplative activity, the other more active. Both draw us closer to Jesus and invite Jesus to increase his life in us.
What matters is that where we look is where we are going. Jesus is our destination, and our companion on the way there. May we, like his disciples, go out and return to our base with great joy, continually blessing God.
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