You can listen to this reflection here. The Ascension reading is here.
The Ascension story, as told in Acts, always 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 use,” meaning, presumably, they are so focused on eternity or spiritual growth that they neglect the horizontal, missional dimension of the Christian life. Such a consumer mentality can be found in those who “church shop,” seeking a spiritual buzz and comfort, but not challenge or outreach. 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 those outcomes alone, but because provision and justice reveal God’s love to the world.
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 uncommon in Christian history.
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 disciples and apostles. As disciples we grow as we invest our time and energy strengthening our relationship with Jesus. As apostles, we follow his lead, training our vision to those places he 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 both 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.
© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Here are the readings for Ascension Day. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Showing posts with label Ascension. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ascension. Show all posts
5-17-23 - The End... and the Beginning
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's epistle reading is here.
Tomorrow is Ascension Day, a major church feast day, though ignored by most churches unless they are named Ascension. Maybe this holiday gets less airplay because the event it commemorates is so odd. What shall we make of this dramatic departure of the already quite dramatically risen Christ? It's hard to imagine such a bizarre event, which only Luke records in any detail, in both his gospel and in Acts.
Yet this is the final scene in the incarnate life of the Son of God, and tells us how he gets back to the place from where our story says he started: the heavenly precincts, where from now on he will be seated in glory at the right hand of the Father (which prompted a vexing question a child once asked me, "Who is on the left side of God?").
Jesus hung out for forty days after his resurrection, the Gospels tell us, instructing and inspiring his followers to believe the impossible, and to live as though they believed it. It’s hard to convince the world all things are possible with God while holed up in fear in a room in Jerusalem. So Jesus kept showing up and going through the lessons again. Even so, they didn't quite get it. Gathered with him just before he takes his final bow, they still ask, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”
Have they heard nothing he’s said about God being among them to heal the sick, raise the dead, proclaim restoration to the poor? Do they still not understand his mission, or theirs, to make visible the power of God to restore all creation to wholeness? Once again, Jesus tries to explain it:
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.”
Why do we so often need to be reminded of where we’re supposed to be headed? Why do we so often let our focus narrow to the small matters of our own lives, forgetting where we stand in the big picture of God’s Life? How might we be regularly redirected to God’s mission through us?
We are redirected by remembering that it is all about the Holy Spirit’s power working through us. Whenever we feel confused or discouraged or in doubt, we return to this central promise: You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.
We need to be open to receiving that power, that presence of God with us; open to exercising that power in Jesus’ name – not our own power, but God’s power empowering our proclamation, our works of restoration and healing, our testimony.
Jesus’ disciples were told they would be his witnesses “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” The book of Acts shows us how closely the spreading of the Good News followed that trajectory. Our chapter in that book will tell even more amazing stories as we let the Spirit work through us.
Tomorrow is Ascension Day, a major church feast day, though ignored by most churches unless they are named Ascension. Maybe this holiday gets less airplay because the event it commemorates is so odd. What shall we make of this dramatic departure of the already quite dramatically risen Christ? It's hard to imagine such a bizarre event, which only Luke records in any detail, in both his gospel and in Acts.
Yet this is the final scene in the incarnate life of the Son of God, and tells us how he gets back to the place from where our story says he started: the heavenly precincts, where from now on he will be seated in glory at the right hand of the Father (which prompted a vexing question a child once asked me, "Who is on the left side of God?").
Jesus hung out for forty days after his resurrection, the Gospels tell us, instructing and inspiring his followers to believe the impossible, and to live as though they believed it. It’s hard to convince the world all things are possible with God while holed up in fear in a room in Jerusalem. So Jesus kept showing up and going through the lessons again. Even so, they didn't quite get it. Gathered with him just before he takes his final bow, they still ask, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”
Have they heard nothing he’s said about God being among them to heal the sick, raise the dead, proclaim restoration to the poor? Do they still not understand his mission, or theirs, to make visible the power of God to restore all creation to wholeness? Once again, Jesus tries to explain it:
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.”
Why do we so often need to be reminded of where we’re supposed to be headed? Why do we so often let our focus narrow to the small matters of our own lives, forgetting where we stand in the big picture of God’s Life? How might we be regularly redirected to God’s mission through us?
We are redirected by remembering that it is all about the Holy Spirit’s power working through us. Whenever we feel confused or discouraged or in doubt, we return to this central promise: You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.
We need to be open to receiving that power, that presence of God with us; open to exercising that power in Jesus’ name – not our own power, but God’s power empowering our proclamation, our works of restoration and healing, our testimony.
Jesus’ disciples were told they would be his witnesses “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” The book of Acts shows us how closely the spreading of the Good News followed that trajectory. Our chapter in that book will tell even more amazing stories as we let the Spirit work through us.
5-27-22 - Watch Where You're Going
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
The Ascension story, as told in Acts, always 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 eternity or spiritual growth that they neglect the horizontal, missional dimension of the Christian life. Such a consumer mentality can be found in those who “church shop,” seeking a spiritual buzz and comfort, but not challenge or outreach. 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 those outcomes alone, but because provision and justice reveal God’s love to the world.
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 uncommon in Christian history.
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 disciples and apostles. As disciples we grow as we invest our time and energy strengthening our relationship with Jesus. As apostles, we follow his lead, training our vision to those places he 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 – he 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.
The Ascension story, as told in Acts, always 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 eternity or spiritual growth that they neglect the horizontal, missional dimension of the Christian life. Such a consumer mentality can be found in those who “church shop,” seeking a spiritual buzz and comfort, but not challenge or outreach. 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 those outcomes alone, but because provision and justice reveal God’s love to the world.
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 uncommon in Christian history.
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 disciples and apostles. As disciples we grow as we invest our time and energy strengthening our relationship with Jesus. As apostles, we follow his lead, training our vision to those places he 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 – he 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.
5-25-22 - Waiting On a Promise
You can listen to this reflection here.
Sometimes playwrights (which I was, once upon a time…) have a problem: how to get a character off the stage. Did God face this dilemma with Jesus? After all, he’s risen from the dead, very much alive and embodied, if somewhat differently than before. Yet this embodied Jesus needs to exit the scene – his work is done, his mission accomplished, and it’s time for the Holy Spirit to be released upon all flesh. He can’t go into the earth or wander off. There’s only one way he can go: up.
…as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.
Nice exit! For the rest of this week we turn to the story of Jesus’ ascension, which Luke tells in more detail in Acts than he does in his Gospel. Both accounts, though, begin with Jesus’ instructions to his disciples:
While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
It is put even more urgently in Luke’s gospel: “And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."
Promises are challenging – they require us to trust the person making them. They are by nature future events - they are only promises before they are fulfilled, at which time they become gifts. And we rarely know exactly when a promise will be fulfilled. It is often when we least expect it – for the disciples this one was met some ten days later, as they gathered to pray on the Jewish feast of Pentecost.
We too have been promised the gift of the Holy Spirit, and we have already received this gift. We can feel the Spirit in prayer, in worship, in ministry. Yet we can also go through periods when we’re waiting for the Spirit’s life to be activated in and around us, for direction to appear, prompts to unfold laying out the way forward for what God has already intended to do through us. The waiting is hard!
In what areas of your life do you feel you are waiting on the Spirit? Waiting for a promise to unfold, a path to appear? Have you told God that you’re waiting? How you feel about the waiting? That doesn’t always shorten the wait, but it deepens the relationship.
The Spirit acts when the Spirit acts; our job is to wait with grace, keeping busy with what is already before us even as we wait to behold what wonders God will reveal in us next.
Sometimes playwrights (which I was, once upon a time…) have a problem: how to get a character off the stage. Did God face this dilemma with Jesus? After all, he’s risen from the dead, very much alive and embodied, if somewhat differently than before. Yet this embodied Jesus needs to exit the scene – his work is done, his mission accomplished, and it’s time for the Holy Spirit to be released upon all flesh. He can’t go into the earth or wander off. There’s only one way he can go: up.
…as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.
Nice exit! For the rest of this week we turn to the story of Jesus’ ascension, which Luke tells in more detail in Acts than he does in his Gospel. Both accounts, though, begin with Jesus’ instructions to his disciples:
While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
It is put even more urgently in Luke’s gospel: “And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."
Promises are challenging – they require us to trust the person making them. They are by nature future events - they are only promises before they are fulfilled, at which time they become gifts. And we rarely know exactly when a promise will be fulfilled. It is often when we least expect it – for the disciples this one was met some ten days later, as they gathered to pray on the Jewish feast of Pentecost.
We too have been promised the gift of the Holy Spirit, and we have already received this gift. We can feel the Spirit in prayer, in worship, in ministry. Yet we can also go through periods when we’re waiting for the Spirit’s life to be activated in and around us, for direction to appear, prompts to unfold laying out the way forward for what God has already intended to do through us. The waiting is hard!
In what areas of your life do you feel you are waiting on the Spirit? Waiting for a promise to unfold, a path to appear? Have you told God that you’re waiting? How you feel about the waiting? That doesn’t always shorten the wait, but it deepens the relationship.
The Spirit acts when the Spirit acts; our job is to wait with grace, keeping busy with what is already before us even as we wait to behold what wonders God will reveal in us next.
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