Lifted Into the Clouds

For forty days, the friends of Jesus could hardly believe their eyes.

He was alive. Really, truly alive. The hands they had watched be hurt were warm again. The voice they had wept for was telling stories again. He ate fish with them by the fire. He walked the dusty roads at their side. And every single morning they woke up glad, because the worst day was over, and Jesus was here.

When you love someone, the very best thing in all the world is simply to be near them.

Then one day, Jesus led his friends out of the city, along the road and over the shoulder of the hill, until they came near a little town called Bethany. There he stopped and lifted up his hands over them. They were the same hands that had gathered up children, and broken bread at a supper table, and carried the marks of the nails. With those hands held high above their heads, Jesus blessed them.

"Stay close together," he told them. "Something is coming. Wait for it."

And while he was still blessing them, while the good words were still warm in the air, Jesus began to rise.

Up off the ground. Up into the open air. Up toward the wide blue sky. His friends tipped their heads back and watched him go, higher and higher, until a soft cloud came and folded around him, and they could not see him anymore.

For a long moment they stayed just as they were, faces turned up, hair blowing, looking at the bright place in the sky where his face had been.

He had gone up with his hands still open over his friends. The blessing never finished, and it never stopped.

And he had gone up to be crowned. Up past the birds, up past the weather, up to the throne beside his Father, King over every star and every sparrow and every person he had ever loved. He was closer to them now than the cloud that had hidden him from their eyes.

So the friends did not trudge home with heavy feet. Right there on the road they knelt down and worshiped him. Then they walked all the way back to Jerusalem so full of joy they could hardly hold it, and they went into the temple, and they praised God, and they kept on praising, morning after morning after morning, leaning forward like children who can already hear the front door opening.

Because the King is on his throne this very moment. He is gathering his whole family in, one by one, and he will not come home missing a single one of them. When the last one is safe, he will come.

So lift your face to the sky and be glad. The hands that blessed his friends on the Bethany road are lifted over you too, and he has not put them down yet.