“‘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.’ When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him our of their sight.” ~Acts 2:8-9
I watched with some interest the drama unfolding in outer space last week. The Space Shuttle Atlantis was up in space for almost two weeks while astronauts did some repair work on the Hubble space telescope.
It is still amazing, I think, that we can do that. Even forty years after the moon landing, even though a shuttle mission doesn’t even get much press anymore – I still think it’s amazing. I think it’s amazing that we have the ability to shoot people into space, and perhaps even more amazing that there are people who are willing to do it. Read more.
I’ve always been a little intrigued by space travel. My high school had a planetarium, and our science classes used to go there for presentations, and I remember leaning back in those great reclining planetarium seats and watching the planets and stars float above me. And then I’d go home, and stand out in our backyard by our garage and look up at the stars and just ponder the vastness of the universe and wonder what it would be like to travel there.
When we lived outside Washington, I loved to go in to the Air and Space Museum and look at the space craft and read the stories of how all that happened. At the museum, there is this one video that’s probably 15 years old now, if not more, of a history of NASA’s space shuttle program, and I loved to just watch that video and marvel at the things we can do.
And then I’d go outside, even in the middle of the day and stand there, looking up to the sky, and wonder… how is that even possible?
I wonder if the early church would have told the story of Jesus’ ascension differently if they’d known what we know about outer space. I mean – they couldn’t have even imagined a space telescope that needed repairs, or a space walk, or an astronaut who flew to the skies and back… the only flying they knew of was done in myths and fairy tales or by birds.
Think of all the ways we try to escape the rules of gravity – besides airplanes and space shuttles – bungee jumping, roller coasters, anti-gravity machines, hang gliding, parasailing…
But they could not have imagined that, I think, as they stood there, looking up, where the risen Christ had disappeared into the mystery of the clouds.
I can’t think of space travel,of course, without remembering the Challenger accident, the first of the shuttle explosions, when those astronauts took off for the skies but did not return to earth.
There is a poem that is often quoted when the story of the Challenger is told; in fact, then-President Reagan quoted it that night, when he addressed the country. It’s a poem called High Flight, by an air force pilot named John Gillsepie Magee, who himself died quite young in World War II. As the story goes, Magee was inspired to write the poem after a training exercise just a few months before his death.
When President Reagan quoted it that night, he pulled the first and last lines to describe the astronauts who had died that day… “They have slipped the surly bonds of Earth…. And touched the face of God.”
Slipping the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God is not something that comes easily, despite all our advancements in technology and all our attempts to fly. Our feet are rather firmly rooted here on this earth, in this life, with all its joys and all its trouble, sorrow, and pain. We can’t, easily, lift ourselves above all that.
So perhaps we can, after all, stand with those disciples and watch with open-mouthed awe, as “Jesus was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.” Perhaps we stand there with them, breathless and uncertain, looking up and watching him slip away.
And what do you do, when everything you have been counting on slips away into the sky and out of reach? What do you do when your job, your relationship, your passion that you’ve lived with for so long simply isn’t there anymore? Do you just stand, and look up?
They did not stand there long. Those speechless, awe-struck spectators to this story. They did not stand there long before these two men in white robes are there, saying, “Men of Galilee why do you stand looking up toward heaven?”
You might recognize these two men, if you’ve been paying attention – in Luke’s gospel, when the disciples come to the tomb on the first day of the week, the find the stone rolled away and the empty tomb, and then, Luke tells us, “Suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them… and said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead?’”
And here: “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?”
Are we not constantly looking for God in all the wrong places?
John Gillespe Magee, that air force pilot thought he “touched the face of God” while flying high above the clouds… and I’ve no doubt that he did. But if we spend too much time looking up, to see where Jesus has slipped away to, we might just miss the face of God that confronts us here on Earth.
Because Jesus hasn’t left for good. That’s what he’s been trying to tell his disciples, and tells them again here in Acts. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.” The story isn’t over here – it’s just the beginning. Funny how that happens, isn’t it? The ending of one story is always the beginning of another?
That’s what Jesus says to his disciples: you will receive the Holy Spirit, and that you will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth.
And then he was lifted up.
They did not stand there long, looking up, before being sent back to their lives, back to the active waiting and abundant living that life in Christ calls us to. They did not stand there long, and neither should we. There are lives to live, and needs to fill and people to love…
Will we simply be spectators to this story or will we take our place in it? That’s the question we’re faced with on this last Sunday of the Easter season as we wait for the coming of the Spirit – will we take our place in this ever-unfolding story of the good news?
I suspect, that if we turn our gaze to the needs among us and around us, instead of scanning the sky for the returning Christ, we might find that the face of God is a lot closer than we thought.