Here and There

One thing is certain about life in the three dimensions: we only occupy one space at a time. Do you remember the title that came out in 1994, Wherever You Go There You Are, by Jon Kabat-Zinn? It furthered a modern popular interest in mindfulness and meditation. It is a great phrase, somehow, both obvious and profound at the same time. The phrase is also found in the Fifteenth Century classic handbook on the spiritual life by Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ. As if you needed reminding, when you are somewhere, you are nowhere else. I am in Texas on a chair in front of my laptop, so I know I am not on the French Riviera.

Today is Ascension Day. It introduces the difference between our reliable experience of physical presence and the spiritual presence of Christ who fills all in all. In Ephesians 1:23, we have the record of Paul’s assertion that God put all things under Christ’s feet, “and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” Christ, having ascended into heaven, is there, and yet he is also present through the agency of the Holy Spirit in the body of Christ on earth, the church. Christ is both here with you and there in heaven. The presence of Christ does not involve travel: “He fills all in all.” In the Gospel of John, Jesus is communicating with his disciples just before his arrest and all that took place. He describes that he and the Father and the Spirit are in an interplay that will divinely connect his followers going forward. Jesus says,

I will ask the Father, and he will give you another to be your advocate, who will be with you for ever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because the world neither sees nor knows him; but you know him, because he dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you bereft; I am coming back to you. In a little while the world will see me no longer, but you will see me; because I live, you too will live. When that day comes you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me and I in you.  (John 14:16-20 - Revised English Bible)

Wherever you go, there you are, but here is the added spiritual truth: Wherever you go, there Christ is. As Christ ascended, he brought you into heaven, and he remains ever with you on earth. Physically and scientifically, you should be comforted that height, depth, and width work the way they do, so you don’t have to keep up with being all over the place. Spiritually speaking, however, you should be comforted that Christ is both ascended, that is, enthroned in heaven, and ever with you, abiding.

Almighty God, whose blessed Son our Savior Jesus Christ ascended far above all heavens that he might fill all things: Mercifully give us faith to perceive that, according to his promise, he abides with his Church on earth, even to the end of the ages; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen. (Collect for Ascension Day, BCP, p. 226)

While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. "This," he said, "is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." … You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. 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."  (Acts 1:4-6, 8-11)

Think about that for a moment. They are looking up toward heaven, and the two white-robed men seed their understanding, that Christ will be present in a new way as they move forward. They are feeling as though he has left them, but in time they will encounter what Jesus had promised them before, that he will be with them always even to the end of the ages. What is more, Christ will be in the world through them.

Bishop Michael Marshall writes of the Ascension, saying when Christ ascends, God is actually coming down to them in a new way. What looks like an end, is a beginning. He references T.S. Eliot’s concluding verse of the second section of the Four Quartets: East Coker, “In my end is my beginning.” Marshall mentions that the Ascension of Jesus marks the end of chapter one in Jesus’ earthly ministry and also the beginning of chapter two.

In chapter one that earthly ministry is through the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth…Necessarily, that ministry is limited in terms of time and space and is tied to the whereabouts of the physical person of Jesus at any one moment. In chapter two (Acts) that same earthly ministry of the heavenly Jesus Christ is through the sacramental body of Christ, anointed at baptism—the church, increasingly unlimited in terms of time and space. (From Great Expectations?  p. 111)

While I am sure the disciples experienced their years with Jesus, the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the ascension as ups and downs, we take it all as part of God’s wondrous gift of divine power in the world. All of it is about the work of God through the body of Christ. It is all tied to the consistent, yet the dynamic presence of God in the world. We often wearily encounter life as a ponderous series of changes and chances, ups and downs. Nevertheless, we are invited to move ever more deeply into God’s view, into the comfort of God’s eternal changelessness.