As we approach Ascension Sunday in many churches, I am drawn to thinking about the oddity of this story. Where did Jesus go? Was it past Jupiter, and hanging a left?
Thinking about what heaven means in a time in which we realize ourselves in a solar system, circling with other solar system in one galaxy among many, can be a challenge. I wanted to share a link to a great blog which explores that question, with some helpful observations about the same: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unfundamentalistchristians/2015/05/where-is-heaven/
These sort of questions are part of why, for me, it makes the most sense to think that much of the ascension story is metaphoric and symbolic. Christ is not “up there” either in the clouds or somewhere in space. Or is he? Does not ascension mean that Christ has risen to fill all things with His living presence, so that wherever we find ourselves, He is nearer than the air that we breathe — whether we be sitting on a porch amidst Carolina pines or sitting in a space station circling the rings of Uranus?
May we learn, like St Thomas, to see Christ as present under each rock we lift, and within each tree we chop open — or save from deforestation.
And I ain’t just whistling Dixie,
Micah
