Still here

May 21, 2020
Since today is the day that the Christian Church celebrates Ascension Day, the day Jesus ascended to God the Father, we will look at part of the story of Jesus’ ascension into heaven As it is recorded in the first chapter of Acts, verse 9. “After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.”

If you are at an airport where you can watch huge jets take off, you see that the further away the jet gets, the smaller it appears until it disappears. We understand that it’s not actually gone. We just can’t see it anymore.

So perhaps we would have expected that to happen to Jesus when he ascended into heaven, he’d get so “small” that his disciples couldn’t see him anymore. But, that’s not how he chose to do it. Instead, he chose to have a cloud come and cover him. The cloud hid him from their sight.

As I read that passage this morning, I realized that the cloud was to be a reminder of the cloud that lead the Israelites in the desert but also a reminder that he hadn’t left them. He is just hidden from their eyes.

I can only imagine how this sight of Jesus being covered in a cloud might have helped the disciples that day. They weren’t alone. They were never alone! Jesus was always there, “behind the cloud,” with both his power and his love.
And, you’re never alone either even though you cannot see Jesus. His promise to you is just as powerful as it was for the disciples. He is with you today and every day after today. Someday you will see him, realizing that he had never left you. What a sight that will be!

Please pray with me the prayer for today: Heavenly Father, creator, and sustainer of all things, seen and unseen, remind me that, even tho Jesus is physically hidden from me now, that he is with me always, to the very end of my time on this earth. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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