Look Up not Down!

It is a challenge to look up but on Ascension Day we are reminded to look up.  What might that mean? (Below is shared at our sheltered home service today)

We live in a world where we often look down.  We feel battered and bruised by the stage of life we find ourselves at.  Our bodies don’t behave the way we want them too or our minds flit between topics like a remote control going through the channels on the tv.  Our politicians seem determined to make a right royal mess of all that they are supposed to be handling and we are not sure if they or we are in, out, in, out, shake it all about, do the hokey cokey…

But as people of faith we are called to look up.  We are not called to look down.  We are a people of hope, of life, of love and of God.  So we look up, not staring into the heavens waiting for Jesus to return although we live in hope of that.  But looking up – knowing that we walk in the confidence of God, proven through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus.  We are people of his Kingdom – no longer afraid of what this world might do to us.  When you read the beginnings of the early Church we are reminded that following Jesus can be really tough but we are not called to look down, but up.  When Elijah felt that he was the last prophet standing and he was on a kill list, he looked down.  When he looked down he lost sight of God, of the beautiful world around him, or the community of faith that existed.  When he looked up at the cave, however reluctantly, he heard God in the gentle whisper and was told that thousands of believers existed just around the corner. Or Peter walking on the water – when he looked up at Jesus he walked on the water.  When he looked down and saw the storm and the waves and the water, he sank.  When he looked up and reached out his hand to Jesus he was saved.

It is often easier to look down than to look up.  Down is where we find those deep wells of self-pity.  Down is where we don’t see the world around us full of beauty and blessings.  Looking down feeds our negative emotions, hides us from interacting with others and isolates us.  The greatest problem with phones for example, is that they encourage to look down, and so we walk through this world unseeing.

The disciples had looked down.  Jesus no longer made sense to them, if he ever did.  Those who have eyes will see, ears will hear.  But they were lost, confused, uncertain, and looking down was easier somehow.  Easier to lose oneself in a locked room away from prying eyes and awkward questions.  But Jesus breaks in again and again, helping them to look up. To understand their scriptures not the way they were taught them, but interpreted through the life, death and resurrection of God’s Son.

And finally he took them outside Bethany – and there he rose up to heaven, out of their sight.  They truly had to look up to watch and there they worshipped him.   There is much in this world that will encourage us to look down but faith in the Lord means we need to look up.  Look up and see each other as brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore reminding us that we are not alone.  Look up and see the beautiful world, hear the birds singing, the rain thumping or feel the heat of the sun on your face.  Look up and see – but remember that we walk by faith not by sight.  So whether you can literally see or not matters not, but your faith will always encourage you look up.  Look up and know that God loves you, that you can walk through this world with confidence and hope no matter what happens.  Amen.