“Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky?” the angel asked the apostles after Jesus departed from them. You can picture the scene. They were all just standing around gazing into the heavens wondering what just happened. The Acts of the Apostles does not tell us how the apostles responded to the question. But I can imagine them saying something like this: Why are we looking at the sky? Because our best friend, our Lord, our teacher has been taken from us. We are missing him. You are an angel. You don’t understand how hard it is for us to say good-bye to someone we love. Every move we make, every step we take, we are missing him. The departure of Jesus has left a hole in the heavens. As with the apostles, so with us. Our own experience is similar. Today is mother’s day. What if an angel came up and said: Why are you still missing your mother? She’s been gone for ten years. You’ve got to move on. Or if another angel came up to a mother and said: Why are you sad because your daughter has moved away? What’s the big deal about having an empty nest? Isn’t that what you have been working for all these years? In those situations the answer would be something like: Why am I missing them? Because I’m a human being. You’re an angel. You don’t understand what it means to feel loss, to feel alone, to feel empty. But I feel it every day. Since they are no longer here it feels like there is a big hole in the heavens.
The angel does have a suggestion on how to handle a hole in the heavens. “This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way.” In other words, but wait, there’s more. God isn’t done yet. Yes, at any given time, in this particular moment we can be filled with a sense of loss or grief that can be overwhelming. We should live deeply in those feelings. They are real. They are human. But they don’t get the last word. God isn’t done yet. Just wait. Night becomes morning. Winter gives way to Spring. Good Friday becomes Easter Sunday. This life prepares us for a new and fuller life to come. That doesn’t make the night any less frightening or winter any less bitter or death any less devastating. But it does help us keep things in perspective. It does help us not to get lost in sorrow and grief and sadness. Just wait, God isn’t done yet.
However, waiting for God to give us “the riches of glory” which is our inheritance (as the epistle to the Ephesians puts it) is not easy. What we have today is a truck load of trouble and grief and questions and fears and doubts. What we might have in the future is, well, future, out there, not here. Sure, we (in our best moments) trust that God isn’t done yet, that change is gonna come, but that doesn’t make it any easier living with the hole in the heavens. So what enables us to hold out until our change comes? The answer proposed by Jesus as he is about to ascend into heaven according to both the account in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Gospel is to become witnesses. “You will be my witnesses,” says Jesus. That seems a little counter-intuitive. You would think that job #1 is to take care of yourself. But that is not what Jesus suggests. Become witnesses of these things, our Lord proposes, and that will help you to hold out until God turns the wheel. Let’s think for a minute on how being a witness helps.
One thing to get straight, the word witness as Jesus is using it does not mean simply someone who sees something. “I witnessed the World Trade Towers fall.” Rather, Jesus uses the term the way we would in a court of law, someone who gives evidence or provides testimony. “Where were you on the night in question?” So imagine the district attorney doing the interrogation. “In your own words, J.J.” (I wonder why lawyers say that. Whose words do they think you’re going to use?) “In your own words, J.J., tell the court how your faith has helped you to hold out until your change comes.” Well, your honor, because of my faith I know that I am never really alone. You see, since I am baptized I am connected to all of these people. It doesn’t matter where you come from, what language you speak, what your race is, how much money you have. All of these people are part of my family, the family of God. So when I am feeling lost and alone I can rely on my fellow Christians to be brother and sister to me. Because of my faith the walls that ordinarily separate us into nation or tribe are broken down. I know I belong even when I experience the hole in the heavens.
“You may step down. Next witness. What about you, Joe-Boy, how does your faith help you to hold out.” It’s because we’re all in this together. It doesn’t matter how much anybody messes up you still belong. That’s why we go to confession. It reminds us that we fall down but we get up. A saint is just a sinner who fell down and then got up. There isn’t anything out there that can keep us from the love of God. Sure, I’ve made plenty of mistakes and people have been really, really mad at me. Take my mom. Whenever I blew it, she would forgive me and start me on the right path again. What made her my mom was not that we shared genes but that we shared love. It’s not the DNA but the TLC that made her my mom. That’s how I think about God. The grace of God is always there for the asking and I can start anew. If I feel like I’m being swallowed by the hole in the heavens the grace and mercy of God pulls me back.
“Final witness. Tell us, Dawn Poinsettia, tell us in your own words how your faith helps you to hold out.” It’s like, well, you know, like – it’s like Jesus is really present with me, you know. When we break the bread and share the cup in the Eucharist it’s like I know that Jesus is here right now, you know. It helps me so much to realize that Jesus is, like, one of us, you know. It’s like he understands all that I am going through. That’s what helps me hold out, you know what I mean?
The defense rests. Church, each one of us can testify how God has made a way out of no way, how God has picked us up and turned us around. Remembering the old, old story is why we can make it each and every day. So when we are feeling that ache in our hearts, when we are experiencing the hole in the heavens, all we need do is look up and see that the hole is there so the hand of God and reach on down and pull me through. AMEN.
