Ascension Day, May 7th 2007: Team Eucharist at All Saints: Datchworth: Catherine Jupp

May I speak in the name of the living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen

"When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight."

Where is up? In Chartres cathedral in France there is apparently a series of most beautiful stone carvings of the life of Jesus. Sculpted from the 16th to the 18th centuries, its 41 scenes detail the life of the Virgin Mary, and of Jesus. Here is an account of one visitor’s exploration of this part of the cathedral.

" I spent some time examining this grand series of stone scenes, this solemn tribute to the Incarnate God. I craned my neck in an absorbed, contemplative, reverential trance -- when suddenly, I burst out laughing! Into the hushed and echoing sacred space, into the meditations and whispers of meandering visitors, I laughed. I surprised, and greatly embarrassed myself -- but I couldn‘t help it! In the midst of all the seriousness, the carved scene of the Ascension showed earnest and distressed disciples gazing up, the angels on the sides, and Jesus’ feet dangling down from the top of the stone frame. It seemed to me to be really very funny, very silly."

So, where is up?

"When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight."

Well, you might say "up" is up there, up in the sky, up in "the heavens," up in Heaven. Of course, "up" means a different direction to someone on the other side of the world, say, in Australia. It's opposite from our "up." And if their "up" is somehow perceived as more accurate than ours, then we'd have to say "up" is really "down." None of this would be debatable if you're a member of the Flat Earth Society. I'm told, there are still 10,000 members of the Flat Earth Society, and for them there's only one way that "up" is "up." However I suspect that most of us accept the notion that the earth is round and that "up" is relative. To save us from this silliness we could use the word "beyond" to describe Christ's ascension - that Christ ascended beyond my vision, beyond my space/time criteria, into a different dimension, beyond my ability to "see" him as he had been seen by his disciples. In fact, being aware of the earth as round and being aware of the unimaginable vastness of space makes the notion of Christ's ascension somehow beyond all that and his invitation to join him there simply unutterably astounding.

In the Book of Acts it tells us that two men with white robes (presumably angels) ask the disciples why they are still looking up toward Heaven. In essence they are told if you want to see Jesus don't look for him up there, look for him when you look at each other. Remember that he said whenever two or three of you are gathered in his name, he will be in your midst. And remember that he told you that he would not abandon you and that the Holy Spirit will come to make you the Church, to make you the Body of Christ in the world.

And so, whenever two or three of them got together it was always as if there were someone else in the room with them whom they could not see-a strong, abiding presence of the absent one as available to them as bread and wine, as familiar to them as each other's faces. It was almost as if he had not ascended but exploded, so that all the holiness that was once concentrated in him alone flew everywhere, flew far and wide, so that the seeds of heaven were sown in all fields of the earth.

We come to church to worship, to acknowledge the Lord's absence as well as to seek his presence, to sing and to pray, to be silent and to be still, to hold out the empty cups of our hands and to be filled with bread, with wine, with the abiding presence of the absent Lord until he comes again. Do you wish you could see Jesus in the flesh sometimes? Do you long for assurance that you have not been left behind? Then why do you stand looking up toward heaven? Look around you, he is here.     Amen.