This week I’ve been thinking about our experience with COVID-19 in the context of time. Time is one of the many things that is so different now. For me, the days on the calendar run together. Outside of Sundays, it sometimes takes me a while to remember what day it is. This past week I’ve asked myself, “Memorial Day Weekend!? How can it be almost June already?” Time is different. It’s almost like we’re in this strange in-between space—there’s time before coronavirus and time, hopefully, after, beyond coronavirus. There’s the past—which we now look back on with, yearning for those normal days again. And there’s the future, a future that we are deeply uncertain of, anxious about, yet a future we still are hopeful will return some stability and normalcy to our lives.
It wouldn’t feel right to be Ascension Lutheran Church and not celebrate the Ascension of our Lord—a festival day in the church calendar that rarely falls on a Sunday and isn’t widely celebrated by Lutherans. But we are people of Ascension. And the story of Ascension is an important story. It serves as that in-between space, that door that swings between the Easter proclamation, “he is not here, he is risen!” and the Spirit’s fiery arrival on Pentecost next week. This day of Ascension invites us to hold on, not to the past or the future, but to God’s presence.
Today we actually get two different accounts of the Ascension—one from the gospel of Luke and the other from the book of Acts. In both stories, before Jesus ascends, he blesses them with a vocation—“you are witnesses of these things,” “you will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth.” In other words, go! Tell everyone about the things you have seen and heard! Go and tell about my death and resurrection, tell about repentance and forgiveness, tell about God’s salvation! Tell about how God is at work in the world!
Yet so much of God’s presence and work in the world is hidden and difficult to discern. One of the pitfalls of the story of Jesus’ Ascension is that it sometimes makes us think that once Jesus ascended, he became absent, a big divine “peace out.” And often our life experiences bolster that claim, right? Wars rage. Poverty persists. Hunger starves. And as we sit, sheltered in our homes, living in “coronavirus time,” the evidence of Jesus’ absence adds up pretty quickly: rampant disease and death, unemployment, abuse in homes and workplaces, depression and despair.
The story of Jesus’ Ascension shows us a different reality, a nevertheless, a hope that seeps under the doors of our closed and made up minds to the contrary. The Ascension declares that Jesus is with us, whether we recognize it or not. Jesus’ hiddenness is not absence. Jesus shows up—outside his own tomb, on the road, at the lakeshore; in our homes, on our neighborhood streets, down by the river. Jesus shows up time and again.
As the disciples gazed into the sky as Jesus was lifted up, I would imagine some of them were hoping that Jesus’ return would happen just as quickly as his departure. I know in the midst of “coronavirus time” our gaze often shifts to the future, hoping that a vaccine, a return to some normalcy, some stability and physical connection—things we so easily took for granted—would happen quickly. Two men in white robes interrupt their reverie and shift the disciples gaze from Jesus’ feet back to that world that Jesus so deeply loves.
The Ascension story shifts our gaze, too. Instead of living in the past or longing for a future, Jesus shows us his presence in the world right now. Jesus shows up with us, in us and his presence is revealed through us. And we are witnesses of these things.
“With the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe,” writes the author of Ephesians. In those times when it gets hard to see clearly Jesus’ presence in a world full of hurt, we can find encouragement and empowerment in God’s words of promise.
One ritual that our family has adopted during COVID time is sharing highs and lows. I know many of you do similar exercises around your tables and living rooms. When it’s hard to see the presence of that ascended Jesus, simply calling to mind our highs—things that give us joy or moments that we’re thankful for—reveal Jesus’ presence. And naming our lows—things that are frustrating or moments that are hard—are a reminder that Jesus is present there, too. And we are witnesses.
When time seems to stand still, when we look nostalgically at the past or hopefully toward the future, when the days run together, even in coronavirus time, Jesus has not left our homes, our workplaces, our community, our world. The ascended one has been right here with us, all the time and will be with us in all time. And we are witnesses.