After a recent round of golf, I found myself gazing up into the sky.
Marvelous things were unfolding there, off in the distance. As the sun slipped toward the horizon, a supernal interplay of nature and technology revealed itself: clouds and contrails…putting on a show.
In the gazing, it was entirely possible to get caught up in things: to regret the strafing of the sky, for instance, due to man-made pollutants; or to stand awestruck by the entire notion of air travel, metal tubes packed with people…defying gravity for a time; or simply to consider the under-appreciated miracle of earth’s atmosphere – clouds and oxygen and star dust and a host of other components all combining to wrap us up in a life-sustaining blanket.
Reason enough to gaze, I decided. Reason enough to look up in wonder and conviction and gratitude.
Christ could, and maybe did, reveal himself in the moment. Gazing up, you could find yourself experiencing the answer to a prayer – this prayer made by Saint Paul millennia ago:
May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to [Christ’s] call, what are the riches of glory in his inheritance among the holy ones, and what is the surpassing greatness of [Christ’s] power for us who believe…
Jesus, though he died, remains with us, Saint Paul believed. Indeed, Christ himself makes this promise in the gospel passage we hear marking the Risen Lord’s ascension into heaven:
And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.
Not only does Christ remain with us, but he shares with us a creative energy capable of breaking the bonds of time and space:
…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you…
Surely we see this power, this Holy Spirit, at work in all the science and technology and engineering that have combined through the centuries to send tubes of people zipping across the atmosphere today.
We may be used to such miracles in this age. But imagine how such a phenomenon would have struck the apostles on that holy mountain in Galilee: Heavenly glory, now written on contrails … revealing the truth of Christ’s promise and the ever-unfolding proof of Christ’s power … in the hearts and minds of those who believe.
Let us pause now…to recall that we are in the presence of the Holy & Merciful One.
IHS
With Us Still 