Today is the Feast of the Ascension.  According to Acts, the risen Jesus spent 40 days with his disciples after Easter convincing them that he was truly risen and speaking of the Kingdom of God.  Then, in their sight, he ascended, and a cloud took him out of their sight.

Jesus’ Ascension does not get a lot of attention in the Protestant church.  Partly, it’s because it always falls on a Thursday, which is not a big day for church attendance.  Partly, I think, it’s because the idea of ascending on a cloud seems so other-worldly and mythological that it is a bit embarrassing.  But perhaps, most of all, we tend to ignore it because Ascension seems to be marking an absence of Jesus – his going away party – or, as one internet meme has it: the day he started working from home.

Sometimes we can happily go through life, not particularly worried about the proximity of the Risen Christ; we’re feeling just fine.  But then, tragedy strikes: we get a bad diagnosis, our spouse wants out of the marriage, we lose a job, our kids turn away from us.  In these moments of personal crisis, it becomes urgent to know where Christ is. 

In the last couple weeks, we have had shared crises that raise the question of Christ’s presence and power.  Gunmen have shot up a grocery store, a church, a school.  Innocents have been killed.  Impotent rage and recriminations fly through our social media feeds.  We long for answers.  We demand solutions.  We ask, without particular concern about being reverent, where the hell is God?

If the answer is that Christ has gone to the safe retreat of heaven to leave us to our own devices, then there doesn’t seem to be much to celebrate on Ascension Day.  But this is not a commemoration of absence or withdrawal.  Ascension is really about enthronement.  It is the final affirmation that the way of Christ is the way of God.

The way of love and peace is God’s way.  The power of violence and death that strung Jesus up in a state-sponsored lynching is not greater than the power of love that raised Jesus to life.

The stained-glass image you see here depicts Jesus’ Ascension.  Note that he ascends with the marks of the nails in his feet.  He bears all our suffering, all of our fears, all of our rage and trauma with him in his exalted triumphant glory.  He gathers his children with their bullet-pierced bodies in his nail-pierced hands and holds them in an eternal love that mocks the power of hate and death. 

Where is Christ when the world goes to hell?  The creed answers that too.  He descended to hell to rob death of its spoils.  He is present with us when things fall apart, when we grieve, when we rage.  He is not absent; he is present – crucified, dead, risen and glorified.  His love reigns eternally and some day every eye will see it.

Prayer:  Savior, our broken hearts can only be healed in your embrace.  Pull us close to your wounded side.  Amen.