The Ascension of Our Lord, Year B

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Église_de_Kalkar_-_Ascension – Jan Joest (1505-1508)        From Wikimedia Commons

“We witness the God who doesn’t just refuse to let us go, but clings to us even more tightly, and brings our painful waiting and unknowing to a blessed end.”

DIAGNOSIS: God Hidden

Step 1-Initial Diagnosis (External Problem): Waiting Alone
Grounding: Before Jesus ascends and leaves the disciples behind, he gives them a command – “stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high” (v. 49).  However,  Jesus neglects to tell them exactly what this “clothing” looks or feels like, let alone when it will come. In other words, Jesus commands to “hurry up and wait” in the vaguest terms possible. If we proceed into Acts, we witness the disciples push back and ask Jesus for details, but Jesus further withholds the kind of answer that they demand. “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority” (Ac 1:7).

Tracking: How often do we find ourselves similarly being forced in one way or another to wait under similarly vague terms, whether from government, medical professionals, nature, or certainly from God’s own self (not that we can necessarily divorce God’s mysterious  involvement in any of this)?

Step 2-Advanced Diagnosis (Internal Problem): Closed Off
Grounding: To their credit, the disciples obey, even returning to Jerusalem “with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God” (vs. 52-53).  And they remain in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit descends upon them (Ac 2:1-12).  Perhaps we might imagine that their joy is so overwhelming as to bury any hinderance of impatience. Granted, it’s hard to believe that they won’t continue to experience some doubt or uncertainty.  After all, they are just as human as we are. But this ascension text conveniently omits such witness – though see what happened just prior to this text: “in their joy they were disbelieving” (24:41).

Tracking: Could we ever really know such a joyfulness that overwhelms our own worst moments of impatience or exasperation? Certainly, we don’t like feeling powerless, let alone feeling that our highest expectations or deepest needs might be shattered.  So, we have many ways to attempt to insulate ourselves against the threat of heartbreak, whether by lowering our expectations, falling back upon cynicism, escaping reality in countless ways, or clinging to some kind of magical thinking.

Step 3-Final Diagnosis (Eternal Problem): Denied
Grounding: The Psalmist confesses the stark truth. “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” (Ps. 13:1).

Tracking: In the long time of our own hard waiting, seeking a God who won’t be found, perhaps we’ve heard an encouragement or even a sermon exhorting us to “look for what God is up to” or other happy signs that God is at “work” around us.  But often, this strangely coincides with our propensity to assume that the world, the universe, and certainly God’s will be all on our side. Deep down, that’s the “fairness” we expect, nay demand.  And how dramatically we lash out at everyone and everything when we feel cheated. The God of “love” and “mercy” wouldn’t dare to deliberately hide from us, right? What preacher would even suggest such a chastening word? Yet, “truly, you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Savior” (Is. 45:15).  After all, what’s the difference between a hidden God or no God at all? Yet  somehow, we still have a sense that God is watching – and judging – with an utter fairness we cannot withstand.

From Canva

PROGNOSIS: God in Plain Sight

Step 4-Initial Prognosis (Eternal Solution): Affirmed
Grounding: Jesus had countless reasons to forsake his disciples and remain hidden from them. Despite all his repeated promises to them, and even all his post-resurrection appearances, their disbelief (24:41) persisted. The women’s witness of the empty tomb “seemed to them an idle tale” (24:11).  Why not just give up on them as they had given up and even denied him? Yet, here he is, refusing to hide from them and utterly determined to bless them. And “while he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven” (v. 51).

Crossing: On the cross and in the empty tomb, God comes out of hiding for our sake too. In the only begotten son’s crucifixion, death, and resurrection – in the turn from death to life – we witness the God who doesn’t just refuse to let us go, but clings to us even more tightly, and brings our painful waiting and unknowing to a blessed end. And we might wonder – what if all of God’s hiding was just so that we would know nothing else but this?

Step 5-Advanced Prognosis (Internal Solution): Opened Up
Grounding: Though Jesus ascends, he is not done with his disciples. “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” (v. 49).  Now, we know the disciples well. Surely this promise leaves them with more questions than answers. “When?” “How will we know?” Yet, despite themselves, “they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy” (v. 52).

Crossing: Thankfully, Jesus isn’t done with us either. He knows us better than we know ourselves, that despite all his promises to us, we still doubt and question as much as any disciple ever did. So, Jesus keeps coming back to us, every time, with his word of forgiveness that raises us to life despite how tightly we cling to death. We may not be able to name exactly how it works, but somehow it opens our ears, because we can’t unhear it either.

Step 6-Final Prognosis (External Solution): A Crisis of God’s Action
Grounding: “And they were continually in the temple blessing God” (v. 53).

Crossing: Our own life in Christ may seem a little muted by comparison. Because Jesus opened our ears, we also hear our neighbors confessing their own questions, doubts, and exasperations. They despair, “I don’t know why God did this.”  And for as much as we wish we had magical answers for them, we can only confess, “I don’t know why either.”  With all of Jesus’ compassion we might even ask, “What would you like God to do instead?”  Deep down, we know that even while God’s mysteries won’t stop confounding us, there’s a strange blessing in knowing that we’re confounded and waiting together.  And there is joy in the words of repentance and forgiveness in Jesus’ name, given to us to bear to a world that’s dying to hear something clear.