Sometimes the most astute theologians are the very young ones. Liam happened to be five when he came into a living room full of adults and announced that his friend’s dog had died. One person in his audience, partly out of concern and partly out of curiosity as to how the dog had died, asked him what happened. Liam’s response, however, indicated that he understood the person to be asking what happened to the dog after it died. He simply said, “He went up in the sky with God.” And then after a slight pause said, “Well, it didn’t really happen that way but I am just trying to help you understand.” In their heart of hearts, even children are aware that there are some things adults do not know and cannot explain.

            Certainly there are things about Jesus that we cannot completely understand. When we read the various accounts of the Ascension left to us by the writers of the New Testament, we see differences in the details. It may not have happened in exactly the way one or the other of them wrote it down. But each of them was trying to help us understand something about Jesus and our relationship to him. As we celebrate the feast of the Ascension of Jesus, this should be our focus. What does the event, however it happened, tell us about Jesus and our relationship to him?

            The story as we read it today in Acts and in Mark tells us that Jesus went up in the sky with God. But what is the significance of the fact that he was here on earth in the first place? It has been said that the most significant symbol on a tombstone is neither the date of birth nor the date of death but rather the dash between the numbers. What the person whose name appears on the stone did with the time in between is what gives significance to the two dates. What Jesus did and said between Bethlehem

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