2320AFC051923 – Look! Up in the sky!
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Acts 1:11 – 11 They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
Psalm 47:7 –
7 For God is the king of all the earth;
sing praises with a Psalm
Ephesians 1:22-23 – 22 And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Matthew 28:17 – 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.
Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Grace and Peace to each of you from God our Father and our Lord, Jesus the Christ, in the Power of the Holy Spirit. This Sunday in many parishes, the Church will be celebrating The Ascension of the Lord. The actual feast day of the Ascension was yesterday, May 18th. It just so happens that Crucita’s “Saint Name” – the Saint or Sacred Event for which she was named – is the Ascension, and this year her birthday (yesterday May 18) and her feast day are the same day. In years past I have written about this event in the life of Christ many times. It is my favorite Gospel message – the day Jesus went to Heaven in a cloud while the baffled Disciples watched. It is important to me because of the content of Acts 1:11. In the post called 1512AFC051515 – Look him up, I said it this way: “Then two angels show up and say, “Men of Galilee, why-y-y-y are you standing there looking into the sky!? This same Jesus, who has been taken up from you into Heaven will return to you in the same way you saw him going up into Heaven.” Man! How great is that?!?! I think that passage is just amazing. I guess some scholars can debate about “in the same way” or “in like manner” but for me the word that jumps off the page and makes my ears ring is SAME as in THIS SAME Jesus.” A few years later in 1917AFC042619 – THIS is important, we find this about “THIS:” “I have also commented there about the word οὗτος (oútos) {hoo-tohs or oo-tohs} as it appears in verse 11 – “Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking up into the sky? This same Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come back in the same way you saw him go into heaven.” This Greek word is very specific and means this one, the one visibly present here, the one just named and none other than this one. There’s not another one, there’s no way it could be someone else. It will be precisely, exactly, permanently that same guy you just saw take off into the clouds. It is HE who will return to you.” It’s one of the most important aspect of the APP.
Every time I hear that it gives me chicken-skin (that’s how we say “goose-bumps” in Hawaiʻi). The angels are confirming what he’s been telling the Apostles and the other Disciples: “I’m coming back to get you and take you home with me.” I wasn’t actually there, but I was there via contemporaneous concomitance (↔ Learning Link), and that experience fills me with great-big, shiny HOPE. I have no doubt that it happened, and I have no doubt that it is true – Jesus is coming back for us at the “end of the age” (the age of The Church). If that bit is true, then it is reasonable that everything else God – the Blesséd Trinity – has said all along: “I love you, and if you will only love me only, I will restore all of you to the Way your Life is supposed to be.” I really, really like that idea! It also fits right in with our Key Verse from Psalms because God is indeed King over all the Earth. The Response in our Responsorial Psalm is “God mounts his throne to shouts of joy: a blare of trumpets for the Lord.” That Key Verse ends with “Sing Praises with a Psalm.” The kind of Psalm referenced here is called a Maskil – it is a “wisdom song” designed to be sung by two choirs for the purpose of meditative instruction. Thus, we have two contrasting outlooks – the first is to raise a ruckus whilst praising God, and the other is to meditate on the magnificence of God’s kingly powers. The boisterous praise is the antecedent to the goal of contemplative reflection leading toward wisdom – as we described last week in the concept of “fear of the Lord.”
Before we tackle the next Key Verse, let’s take in the title. Do we recognize that phrasing? In our minds do we hear “It’s a bird!” “It’s a plane!” “No! It’s ….”? The person we are expecting is not Superman. The person we are expecting is Jesus! But, are we really? How often do I, do you, do we really look up in the sky to see if that cloud elevator he rode up into Heaven is headed back down? Isn’t it true that most days we are so wrapped up in the day-to-day grind that we put it completely out of mind – you know, “out of sight, out of mind.”? Getting in touch with God is actually pretty easy – when we remember to do that. But how do we stay in touch with God anytime all the time? I remember a song from 1972 that instructs on how to get in touch with God in a wise way – maybe it’s a modern maskil? We can and should turn our attention to God, tune in on what he has to say (he’s telling us stuff all the time!) and just Turn Your Radio On. Belovéd, I love that song! First because it tells a timeless truth: If you want to stay in touch with God, you gotta listen!
When God speaks it is very often in that “celestial hymn” and so, “Lord, with all the angels and saints, we, too, give you thanks as in exultation we acclaim: Holy, holy, holy Lord God of hosts, …” Did you know that if we’ve got our radio on, we might – you and I just might – hear our Guardian Angels singing along?!?! Sometimes they sound like our grandkids, or our neighbors, or like real-deal angels – but if we don’t hear them it’s NOT because they are not singing! It’s because we’re being fence-post Christians – just standing there in the noise like fenceposts in the meadowlands. Belovéd! We’re singing with the Angels and the Saints! And if we are missing that, what else might we be missing if we aren’t looking up and listening in? “Pray without ceasing” keeps the radio on, so when we make our entire day a prayer of adoration, thanksgiving, and praise we are certainly less likely to miss the millions of little piece of the gigantic moments in our lives when God is singing “Hey there, you with the stars in your eyes – this is a sing-along, not a sing-alone, so I’m signing to you BECAUSE I LOVE YOU!”
Can you believe that? God’s Love is everywhere all the time. It’s in all the blessings he showers down on the good and the no good. Sometime this week, as we’re about to nod off in front of the TV or in bed, let’s agree to take a moment or two to count our blessings (↔ Music Link) just for that day. Too tired? Then let’s count them (↔ Music Link) just since dinnertime. I’m pretty sure you won’t be able to stay awake long enough to cover them all. Sometimes they’re hard to remember because we’re not paying attention. What if we really tried hard during the day to know that “he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” When I give God my entire day as a Daily Offering, it helps me keep that radio plugged in and turned on. The Apostle Paul tells us we can fill our days with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs (See Ephesians 5:15-21 – it’s beautiful!) – so turn on your local Gospel station or EWTN. Stay on the straight and narrow. Walk the Path of God’s design. Read Psalm 27 every day if you need to (or just memorize it), especially verses 1 & 11. Don’t hang out with wicked people – even though we’re surrounded by them and we are sinners, too. Just remember GIGO – Gospel In Gospel Out. We need to be doing what we know is right and avoid doing what we know is wrong. When we mess up, we fess up – we repent and stick to it. Don’t be full of “it.” Be full of him who made you and blessed you with his Love. If we find that hard to believe, we may not be getting any reception where we are. It might be time to get a stronger receiver or get closer to the broadcaster (Sehlah. ↔ Learning Link) or, maybe we need to simply believe the incredible, the unbelievable, the incomprehensible:
Jesus is real, Jesus is alive, Jesus was taken up into Heaven in clouds. Jesus is coming back the same way, but he won’t be alone then because it will be the end of time. We might think it extraordinary that even as they watched Jesus’ Ascension, “some doubted.” After all, the Apostles spent about three years with him day and night, and those who witnessed his appearances in the Cenacle surely had no doubt that the glorified Jesus was “this same Jesus” with whom they had shared many intimate moments before and after the resurrection. The text does not give any indication of how many were with him on the mountainside when he was taken up into Heaven, but imagine how his followers might have perceived him as different.
His body may have had the holy shimmer of Glory as we covered in 1202AFC011312 – Sh’khinah Glory for you, that same glimmer hovering over the Mercy Seat on the Ark of The Covenant. Perhaps they weren’t convinced that “this same Jesus” was the Man of Sorrows (↔ Music Link) who had been severely beaten beyond recognition, and then crucified. Perhaps – even with the testimony of the 12, the attestations of the Saints in the Cenacle, and the words of the” two men dressed in white” – the total magnitude of the “sheer goodness of God was so overwhelming that reason could not take it in; such information can be held only in the earthen vessel of F.A.I.T.H. – being Fully Aware I Trust Him. After the Resurrection, Jesus’ body was transformed into the eternal, divine, and glorified human who participated in creating everything this that is, was, or will be. Considering that, I believe Jesus must have had a different appearance than what some Disciples could comprehend. When I try to imagine that, I remember a story told by Dr. Fred Begay. (↔ Learning Link)
Dr. Begay was from was the first Navajo, and also the first Native American, from any Indigenous People, to receive a Ph.D. in physics. In an episode on NOVA in 1979, Dr. Begay explained how, as a child, he first tried to understand how clocks worked. his experience in his family had taught him that one can tell the time using the position of the sun. As I recall, he postulated that the sun’s rays entered into the mechanism and made it move. He seemed destined in his family to be a Healer and farmer, but after serving in the Korean war, he was recruited by the Federal Government to go to college and study mechanical engineering. He eventually ended up at Los Alamos National Laboratories as a nuclear physicist. He has won many prestigious awards and his work is recognized internationally. So, what’s the connection? In much the same way that one can tell time by the position of the sun, one can also view Time by the position of The Son – but only if we’re looking for the Sun and not trying to lock him into some sort of mechanical box to make the World function. God already took care of that, but we are still obligated by F.A.I.T.H. and reason to keep watching for Jesus. If we’re gonna watch, we have to look. If we want to stay watchful, then everything we think or say or do must be “hidden in Christ.” (See Colossian 3:1-11. There is some really Good News there!) I also recommend remembering that after the Resurrection, Christ did not appear to everyone. Over the forty days between the Resurrection and the Ascension, he appeared to many Disciples – as many as 500 at one occasion – but he didn’t go into Jerusalem and shout, “Hey everybody! Look what God did!” He appeared with and spoke to the Body of Christ, the Church. Can we trust him to appear in out lives and speak to us? Let’s look to Genesis 28 as we close up shop for today. Maybe it will help us see the Light. (↔ Music Link)
This is where we find the story of Jacob’s Ladder and the Promise God made to Jacob –
Is it JUST a telephone Pole?
called by God IsraʻEl. In verse, 15 God tells Jacob, “15 Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Our Blessed Trinity is still working on that promise. They have not left us (“Behold, I am with you always … ), so we can believe that we are not abandoned. IF we believe Jesus “was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died and was buried;
he descended into hell;
on the third day he rose again from the dead;
he ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty;
from there he will come to judge the living and the dead.”
THEN we should take to heart his admonition to watch (See Matthew 24:42-44). We can take as our motto, Just Trust. He’s coming back to us in the sky amid the clouds, so Look! Up in the sky!
Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!
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Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
