Pastor’s Pen | May 2024

 Then [Jesus] led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. (Luke 24:50-51)

“Mommy, how come we don’t get to see Jesus?” Amelia asked me one day on our way to the grocery store.

These kinds of questions often come out of the blue as we’re running errands or playing outside in the backyard. Questions that give me pause and make me wonder what to say and how to say in a way that my six year old might understand.

Lately, (perhaps because we’ve been in the season of Easter for seven weeks and talking about the resurrection of Jesus) Amelia has felt annoyed that the disciples were able to see and talk with Jesus, and we don’t have the same luxury. “It’s not really fair. I want to see, Jesus, too,” she complains.

I tried to explain to her that we see Jesus all the time—in the faces of our friends at church, in the sack lunches we pack, whenever we share what we have with others, when we sing and pray and eat communion—Jesus is with us. Though, her six-year-old brain is just not satisfied with those answers. She wants to see Jesus’ physical body. She wants to know what his eyes look like, hear the sound of his voice, and notice the color of his skin.

In the Gospel of Luke and in the beginning of the book of Acts, we read accounts of Jesus’ Ascension. The story of when Jesus physically left this world and cloud surfed to heaven to prepare a place for us. It dawned on me, this Ascension Sunday (May 5), that this is a very practical story and I finally had an answer to Amelia’s question.

Why don’t we get to see Jesus like the disciples did? Well, because he ascended. He was lifted up. His body withdrew from this world and he promised to send the Holy Spirit to empower us to continue his ministry on earth.

Jesus leaves and in doing so sends us into the world for the love of the world. As it turns out, my first response to Amelia’s question makes more sense to her now. We don’t see Jesus’ physical body anymore, because he left. But he leaves us behind to be his body. It is through our eyes, our voices, and our hands that Jesus will be present. He asks us to carry his ministry forward, with the help of the Holy Spirit. The ministry of healing, saving, forgiving, loving, feeding, and freeing this world.

Where has Jesus gone? How can we see Jesus now? 16th century theologian and mystic, St. Teresa of Avila says it best:

Christ has no body but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which He looks Compassion on this world,

Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good,

Yours are the hands, with which He blesses all the world.

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,

Yours are the eyes, you are His body.

With gratitude for our shared life and ministry as the body of Christ,

Pastor Beth