Pastor Amanda Llewellyn, in a podcast I once heard, suggested that Ascension Sunday in the church year tends to get downplayed, not because it lacks importance, but because it challenges us in ways we’d rather avoid.
She said honestly, “It’s easier to stargaze.”
Easier to look up into the clouds than to look around at each other. Easier to long for the one Savior in the sky than to recognize the fractured, struggling, messy body of Christ right here, right now.
This hits hard for me because it’s true. I am a stargazer. I default to a Jesus "up there" rather than a Christ among us. I tend to imagine salvation as a spectacle in the sky instead of a struggle on the ground. However, the Ascension story isn't just a vision of Jesus rising. As written in Luke, the Ascension story moves from scripture to a new understanding, a command, and, finally, a commission.
As recorded in Acts we read:
“They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. ‘Men of Galilee,’ they said, ‘why do you stand here looking into the sky?’” Acts 1:10–11
I admit I have never been quite comfortable with the Ascension. There’s something awkward, and certainly otherworldly, about imagining Jesus literally floating into the clouds. My mind struggles with the image. Jesus’ resurrected, physical body defying gravity and disappearing into the sky. Where exactly did he go? Is heaven up? Does it have coordinates?
For years, I treated the Ascension like theological fine print: something I nodded to internally without understanding, let alone finding meaning in it for my life. Hearing this "stargazing" perspective shifted everything. It didn’t make the Ascension less mysterious, but it made it more real.
The men in white say to the disciples, “Why do you stand looking into the sky?”
In other words: Don’t get stuck looking up. Look out. Look forward. Look around because something has changed. Also, don't stand looking - act. Jesus is no longer here as a singular body that we read about, walking dusty roads, healing the sick, teaching on mountaintops. Now we are that body. A collective body that is fragile, accountable, and empowered. The Ascension is not Jesus abandoning Earth. It’s Jesus trusting Earth. It’s Jesus trusting us, and this becomes uncomfortable:
If we take the Ascension seriously, we do not place all the weight of hope and healing on Jesus alone. We must take up the mantle. We must carry on the mission, and that’s a harder gospel because it means the work of peace, justice, reconciliation, healing - that’s ours now.
The Ascension does not signal Jesus leaving the world, but Christ expanding within it. Christ in us. Christ among us. Christ is still speaking and still serving, and still suffering through us. This idea of being the body of Christ feels daunting. We are not perfect. We are not divine. And yet we are called. We are sent. We are gifted by the Spirit.
This is not a solo calling. It’s communal, and that is good news: You do not have to do this alone. In fact, you cannot. You are a hand, a voice, a heart, but you are not the whole body. None of us are.
So let's step away from the clouds. Come down from the heavens in our communal imagination. Come back to earth, where Christ lives in the hurting, in the hopeful, and in the humble work of love.
When we stop stargazing, we can continue to embody and praise God.
No comments:
Post a Comment