Jesus’s ascension is a very hard scene for us to picture. It’s a moment of spectacular special effects, maybe, or a religious vision that most of us have never experienced anything like. But however it happened and however you picture it, this ascension is something Jesus told the disciples would happen, that after his resurrection his physical presence would only be with them for a while, and then their world would be turned upside down yet again. It must have been hard for them. On that first Easter they all found it hard to believe the story of the women, they all found it hard to accept that he was really back with them, that he had experienced life after death and shown them what it looked like. And now they have to accept something else, that now a new time has arrived, a time when the presence of Jesus has taken yet another form. That time without the risen Christ began for them at the ascension and that is the time we are all now living in, too.
What is the world after the ascension meant to be like for us? I think one clue for us is the question that gets posed to the disciples by the two mysterious bystanders as they are all standing looking up at the sky. These men ask them, why are you looking up there? On the one hand, of course it’s obvious why they are. But on the other hand, these bystanders and divine messengers are trying to remind the disciples that “up there” isn’t where Jesus is to be found. His power and his presence have not gone up there in order to go away from us. A new and better era has begun, just as he said it would.
And frankly this is what might be harder for them and for all of us to grasp than anything having to do with the ascension. Jesus told the disciples that the time after his death and resurrection would actually be better than having him with them physically. This is not like a situation where a family or friends would be left abandoned to carry on as best they could without a beloved friend. Because they would not be without him. He didn’t really come out and say why this time after the resurrection would be better, but what he seemed to be saying was that in the future, his presence would not be limited, that the gift of his spirit now overcomes every dividing line of what is possible. It not just that memories of Jesus would be present, or that we could use our imaginations to think about what his presence would be like. He would be really present, the resurrection and the ascension mean he has overcome every boundary that stands between him and us. That’s what our church’s emphasis on real presence in the eucharist means, his actual presence and power are here, not just a picture of them but really here. But of course we don’t believe that the eucharist is the only place he is really present, he isn’t bound by that limitation either. He is present in this assembly now, as we are gathered together, he is present when we sit with him in prayer, wanting to have an individual relationship with us the same way he had an individual relationship with all those people in the gospels who came to him and needed him. It’s overwhelming to realize that it is possible, that he is not physically here but he is here in a way that makes physical presence almost inferior to it. But if we believe that the resurrection is as real as the disciples experienced it to be then we can believe that Jesus didn’t overcome death in order to go away from us. He did it to be with us always.
We have all been trained, maybe not on purpose, it just happens, we have been trained in a way not to believe this. We hear people talk all the time about God “up there.” It’s hard to avoid the idea that when we pray, or even when we come here to mass, that we are somehow praying to a God who is at a distance, both a physical distance and maybe an emotional one too. Maybe it happens because we’ve all seen pictures of an ancient God the father seated in a chair in the clouds, and perhaps Jesus there with him, as if they are in another kingdom entirely, observing our lives from a distance, seeing how we do with the challenges we have to work with. And it is true that this world often looks as if Jesus is absent from it, weeks like this past one with unspeakable and preventable violence that just never seems to end, that too many people don’t care enough about to want to stop.
But even in this misery the risen Christ is not absent, he is not absent in the search for justice, he is not absent when we turn to him wondering what to do next. He is seated at God’s right hand but is also still here at ours. So if we are only looking “up there” for Jesus, we are looking in the wrong place. Look around here today instead. Because he promised that his presence and his power would surround us, that when we try to follow him he is with us. And like all his promises, he has kept it.