Lifted Into the Clouds

The eleven came down from the mountain in Galilee and walked the long road south to Jerusalem, and there, in a room in the crowded city, Jesus came to them again.

He opened the old scrolls they had heard read every Sabbath since they were boys. "Everything written about me had to come true," he said. "In the Law of Moses, in the prophets, in the Psalms. All of it."

He showed them the lamb's blood on the doorposts, the king riding a donkey, the servant wounded for other people's wrongs. Scroll after scroll, there he was. (It was like looking at the same old family photos a hundred times and suddenly noticing one person standing in every one of them.)

"It was written that the Christ would suffer," Jesus said, "and rise from the dead on the third day. Now, in my name, people in every nation will hear that they can turn back to God and be forgiven, starting here in Jerusalem. You saw it all. You are my witnesses."

"Stay in the city," he said. "I am sending you what my Father promised. Wait here until you are clothed with power from heaven."

Clothed with power! Not one of them owned a coat like that.

One day Jesus led them out through the city gate, across the valley, and up the Mount of Olives toward the village of Bethany. None of the eleven guessed where this walk would end.

Near Bethany, Jesus stopped. He lifted his hands over them, the hands that still had the nail marks in them, and he blessed them. (Priests raised their hands like that in the temple when they blessed God's people.)

And while Jesus was still blessing them, he began to go up.

"Look!" someone gasped.

His feet left the hillside. He rose higher than the olive trees, higher than the birds, until a cloud came between him and them, and he was carried up into heaven with his hands still raised.

Then, there in the grass where he had stood, the eleven knelt and worshiped him.

Most people walk home slowly after a goodbye. The eleven went back down the Mount of Olives with great joy. Jesus had gone to sit beside his Father on the throne, where no country on earth was too far away for him. Their friend was King over everything now, and the gift he had promised was already on its way.

So they went to the temple, and the next day they went again, and the day after that. "Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good!" they sang, loud enough for the whole court to hear. (The priests may have started to wonder whether these Galileans ever went home.)

Years before, in that same temple, a priest named Zechariah had come out to the waiting people and could not say a word. All he could do was wave his hands.

Ever since Aaron, priests had lifted their hands over the people, then grown old and died, and another had taken each one's place. On the hill near Bethany another priest lifted his hands. Death had already had him and could not keep him. He went up into the real holy place, where God lives, and he is there now, praying for his friends.

Zechariah's hands could only wave. Jesus raised his over his friends and blessed them all the way up into heaven.