One minute Jesus was standing with and talking to his disciples. They can see him. They can hear his voice. And if they had reached out they could’ve touched him. The next minute, “he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.” (Acts 1:1-11)

I have no idea how that happened or if it really did happen. But I do believe it is true. 

What do you make of Jesus’ ascension? What does it mean for us and how we live? I think it’s about more than just reciting in the creeds “He ascended into heaven.”

More and more I am coming to see that Jesus’ physical withdrawal from this world is less about his absence and more about our presence. 

It makes me think about helping my younger son learn to walk. At first I just stood in front of him holding his hands and helping him keep his balance. Later I’d face him, hold his hands, and take a step backwards while he stepped forward. At some point I let go of his hands and stepped backwards, withdrawing from him.

To him it probably looked like absence or distance between us. But from my perspective I was making space for him to become a bit more himself. I was inviting and calling him to step forward and fill the gap between us.  

Two men in white robes ask the disciples, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” Their question suggests that there is somewhere else to be looking. Maybe it’s not a question to be answered. Maybe it’s a call to fill the gap, an invitation to step forward. 

• What if “the withdrawal of [Jesus] from our view is always a matter of justice”?
• What if “[Jesus is] deflecting our eyes from [him] to our neighbor”?
• Maybe Jesus is “declining to be made visible and palpable in order to incline us to justice for the visible neighbor and palpable stranger.”
  
  (John D. Caputo, On Religion, 202)

Look at the gaps in your life and our community today. For some there is a gap between the life we are living and the one we want to live, the person we are and the person we want to be. For most of us there is probably a gap between the world as it is today and the world we want to give our children and grandchildren. 

Every wound, loss, and broken heart is a gap waiting to be filled. Injustice is a gap that is swallowing up lives. Hunger, poverty, homelessness, loneliness, racism, gun violence are gaps asking for our presence. Broken relationships are gaps asking for someone to step in.

What gaps do you see in your life and Uvalde today? Some gaps are individual and personal. Others are communal and shared. Who is falling through and getting lost in the gaps?

Whatever the gaps in our lives and community might be today, we have a choice to make. We can keep looking up toward heaven, toward that which is unseen and intangible, or we can turn our eyes to our neighbor who is visible, reach out our hands to the circumstances that are tangible, step into the gap, and do something.

I wonder what stepping into the gap means and looks like for you today. What keeps you from stepping into the gap? What gravity keeps you stuck? And what would it take to step into the gap today?

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Image Credits:
1. Cropped Detail of “Ascension Icon” by bobosh_t is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
2. Cropped Detail of “Ascension Icon” by bobosh_t is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.