It’s contagious, isn’t it . . . when someone looks up into the sky? You can’t help but follow the gaze. You can hardly blame the disciples for staring into the sky as Jesus is lifted up on a cloud. It defies logic. It defies physics. It defies everything we think we know about how the world works, but just 40 days ago Jesus was raised from the dead. Everything is different. “The light shined in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it,” as the Gospel of John records. The Ascension is like light in the sense that if you stare directly at it you’re left with a foggy blindness; but if you allow the Ascension to illuminate what is around it, one will see, perhaps more clearly, God’s accomplishment in the person of Jesus Christ.
Luke begins the Book of Acts saying, “In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven.” A relative beginning of our story goes back liturgically to Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday is the beginning of a 40-day period of preparation leading up to Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection. Easter begins a 40-day period of celebration. In a way Lent and Easter are mirrors of one another with the Resurrection at its center. Forty days of preparing for life’s finitude and forty days understanding that death is not the end of the story. On Ash Wednesday we bow in humility knowing that we are dust, and during the Ascension our upward gaze can see the dust from the soles of Jesus’ feet.
You know Jesus’ feet were dirty. They had to have been. I saw a painting of the Ascension this weekend and I noticed on the hillside from which Jesus rose into the heavens, there were footprints left behind. I’m not sure why I hadn’t thought of it before, but of course there were footprints. Jesus left footprints all over Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem. There were footprints leading to the Temple and the Synagogues. There were footprints on the hillside where 5,000 people ate. There were footprints on the wrong side of town. There were footprints where the poor would walk.
Where have my footprints been? Teresa of Avila once said:
“Christ has no body now on earth but yours… Yours are the eyes through which the compassion of Christ looks out on a hurting world; yours are the feet with which he goes about doing good; yours are the hands with which he is to bless now.”
It’s a humbling inventory to look back on the week and retrace your steps. Where have our feet been as a church this week? When Jesus ascends the disciples are staring into the sky and two angels say to them, “Why are you looking into heaven?” One answer is that it is too difficult to look upon Jesus’ footprints because Jesus walked with the poor. Jesus walked with the oppressed. Jesus walked with the ill and outcast. The disciples had their arms stretched to the heavens and the angels there said, “You’ve put together a mighty fine worship service . . . now it’s time to get your feet dirty continuing doing the work of the kingdom.
Footprints leave a mark. They are a mark of action. Several weeks ago my sisters inspired me to start jogging again. They are training for the Louisiana half-marathon next year. I am not one to be outdone by anyone, let along my sisters, so I got up early Monday morning and I hit the pavement hard. Tuesday I got up and hit the pavement harder. Wednesday I got up but I couldn’t go as far as I did on Tuesday. Thursday is my day off, so I was going to go on a fifteen-mile jog, but I could only do about one trip around the neighborhood. Friday . . . well . . . I hardly got out of bed. I called my sister to tell her that I just couldn’t do it. I tried to get out there and start training, but I’m just not built for this sort of thing. She talked to me about it and told me that pushing yourself to the limit on your first day out is ill-advised. You have to walk first, then rest. Then you walk a little faster, then you rest. Light day, rest. Heavy day, rest. Rest is an integral part of training.
Footprints are a mark of action, but they are also a mark of absence. Footprints remind us that the person who was here isn’t anymore. Jesus left footprints because he was gone. Bradley E. Schmeling said it well:
There’s melancholy and uncertainty in ascension. Just behind the fullness of Easter comes the confusing absence . . . we love the power and directness of Easter—lilies and trumpets and appearing behind closed doors—but there’s something inside us that knows we can’t take it everyday. We need space to stare at the cloudy sky, moments to wonder if our experience is really true. We need to long walk back to the house . . . It feels like the day after the party, the day after visiting family have packed up and driven away. It’s the day for the walk back to Jerusalem because we need absence as much as we need presence.
Jesus is gone . . . but he’ll be back, the angels say. Until then we’ve got work to do. Christ has no feet but ours, so let’s make sure our feet are following the path Christ has already trod so that the footprints Christ has left won’t be absent for long. Fill the footsteps that lead toward House of Serenity. You know we will be serving a meal there the last Sunday of June. Fill the footsteps that lead to Weekend of the Cross. Christ needs youth and adults to serve, and if you can’t serve you might consider sponsoring someone who can. $75 will change someone’s life. Fill the footsteps of Vacation Bible School so that our children will learn the stories that will serve them for a lifetime. When you start to do the work of Christ it becomes infectious. People begin to see a change in your life. They see an energizing peace about you and they want it to. It’s like staring into the sky. People become curious. Will you show them the way? In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.