Why are you staring at the sky?

The story of the Ascension of Jesus into heaven is without a doubt one of the most thought provoking stories presented to us in Scripture.

Jesus gathers the Disciples together after appearing among them for weeks after his Resurrection. What do they ask him? “Lord, are you going to restore the rule to Israel now?” What a picturesque moment. The Disciples have been through a lot since their gathering in the Garden of Gethsemane was broken up by the angry crowd. They watched him suffer and die. They hid in fear for their own lives. He rises from the dead, and spends time with them. Now he returns to the father. Surely, after all of that, the Lord must be ready to do what they expected the long awaited Messiah to do: free the people of Israel from their submission to Roman rule, and give them their rightful place as God’s chosen people…

Clearly, they still don’t understand all that has happened.

After Jesus rises from their sight into the glory of heaven, two angels appear and deliver what I think is one of the most amusing lines in the entire Bible: “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky?” Why are you standing here gazing up at the clouds, thinking about what could have been…what you thought should be…what you hoped would happen…Get out of your heads, and stop looking up…instead, look ahead!

How much of our own prayer time is spent “looking at the sky”? We bring offer our prayers to heaven and then gaze upward looking after them, expecting an answer that we can see. We will find far more answers looking at what is right in front of us!!

The Lord works in our lives in our everyday experience. It is supremely rare that he answer prayers with lightning bolts or trumpet touting angels. He is among us each and every day, and we walk right past him. He talks to us every day, and we don’t hear him. He carries us through hard times, while we are busy asking him to take them away. He gives us strength to overcome our pain, while we ask him to lessen our suffering.

During this COVID-19 experience we have all been going through, a great many eyes have shifted their gaze toward heaven. Many people around the globe have been asking the Lord to take it away, to bring an end to it. Many have asked “Lord, why?” It is certainly important to bring our needs to the Lord but we shouldn’t get lost staring at the sky, because the answer – and the better question- is immediately before us.

The better question is: Lord, what do you want me to work on that is so important to you, that you stopped the entire world to draw my attention to it?

The Disciples learned a clear lesson from the events of that Ascension Day, a lesson that Jesus taught them each day that he walked among them. While they were asking if he was going to restore the rule to Israel, they completely missed that he already had – just not in the way they expected. When the Spirit comes at Pentecost they will add it all up, and be transformed into passionate evangelists of the Gospel. Until then, they would return to that locked room – and I would suspect – they sat by the window, continuing to look up at the sky for a sign.

May we all look around us right here at the ground level, to find his presence in our midst…to find the answers to our prayers…to find the sure and certain hope that his resurrection promises.