This Sunday the Liturgical season of Easter concludes with Christ's Ascension. It is time for the resurrected Christ to join his Father in Heaven. By this time the disciples were experts on saying good-bye. They had said good-bye to their friend and teacher when he was crucified on the cross. This time, though, they are not saying good-bye in the midst of death but in the midst of life. Christ ascends into heaven as the resurrected Son and will be alive forevermore.

My favorite line for the ascension accounts comes for the Acts of the Apostles. After Jesus shares his parting words we are told that he was lifted up on a cloud. At this time two men in white robes (angels?) join the disciples and ask, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?"

It seems perfectly reasonable to me that the disciples would be staring into heaven, jaws dropped. They had just witnessed something never before seen! Yet the angels try to call their attention back down to earth. The angels tell them not to look up, but to look around. I can imagine the angels saying, "Christ lives! (AMEN!) And because Christ lives there is plenty still to do right down here on earth! So get to work guys"

Jesus left the disciples (and us) with a mission. In the words of Matthew 28, this mission is to "make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you."

The disciples did turn their gaze back toward earth and soon got to work (with the help of the Holy Spirit) on Christ's mission for them. They preached and baptized and witnessed to their faith. They fed the hungry and healed the sick and visited those in prison. And they did all of this in the name of the Living Christ! And so do we!