Ascension Day 2020
“Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’” Matthew 28: 16-20
St. Thomas, Menasha
Yesterday was the little-known Feast Day of the Ascension of Jesus to heaven, celebrated 40 days after Easter. Barbara Crafton1 describes this as the feast of the “simultaneous presence and absence of Christ.” Charles Chatham,2 a former priest at St. Mark’s reminds us that the New Testament scholar, Raymond Brown, coined this helpful phrase about the ascension: “the presence of the absent Jesus.” There is an absence of the physical body of Christ, but in some mysterious way he is still with us, inside of us, beside us, inside our neighbor as well.
Barbara Brown Taylor3 reminds us that there are times, so many times, we want to feel the presence of Jesus. We think he is absent. She tells us that instead of looking up to heaven, we are to look around us. Look in our neighbor. Look inside of ourselves. Jesus is still here. Remember how God cared for us in the past. God has never abandoned us.
We know that the ascension means Jesus took part of the world’s humanity to be forever a part of God, the Holy. But Taylor also describes the ascension almost as if Jesus had not only ascended but exploded, so that much of the holiness that was once concentrated in him alone flew everywhere, flew far and wide, so that the seeds of heaven are now sown in all the fields of the earth at that time and in the future. The body of Christ is not somehow beyond our telescopes but is here, beside and inside of us. We weekly celebrate this presence in the Eucharist.
In addition to the presence of Christ now still with us, “always to the end of the age,” as Mathew tells us, Jesus also promises that soon in ten days we will celebrate the promise of the presence of the Holy Spirit within each of us at the Feast Day of Pentecost. Both feast days are a mystery.
Kate Alexander4 at Christ Church reminds us about a prayer attributed to the 16th century Spanish mystic Carmelite nun, Teresa of Avila, which may help explain what so many are trying to tell us:
“God of love, help us to remember
That Christ has no body now on earth but ours,
No hands but ours, no feet but ours.
Ours are the eyes to see the needs of the world.
Ours are the hands with which to bless everyone now.
Ours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good,
Ours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world. Amen.”
1Barbara Crafton, “Almost Daily Email from Geranium farm,” Ascension, 2004.
2 Charles Chatham, “Presence of the Absent Jesus,” in Thinking Faith #172, 2012.
3Barbara Brown Taylor, “Looking Up to Heaven,” Gospel Medicine, pp. 72-78.
4The Rev. Kate Alexander, Feast of the Ascension, Year B, Christ Church, Little Rock, May 21, 2009.
Joanna. joannaseibert.com