The story of the Ascension, is the story of people who live in the mean time - in the time when the light has been extinguished temporarily and when we are struggling to remember that Christ is still blessing us. The story is a story of love made flesh among a group of disciples who faced great tragedy themselves. They came from diverse backgrounds and beliefs and ideologies and yet, they were bound together in a common love of God and one another. We want to establish controls, a calendar with dates for God's action, and to do it on our terms. The great human tendency is one to create God in our image and tell God how the world should be.
Folk religion is the order of the day.
Over and over again, it is shattered by the reality of evil among us and by the awareness that none of us has the power to control. Ascension is a time when we look up so that we can then look around. This is the time to discover that Jesus has left us but for a moment and will immediately return in a different form - the form of the body of Christ that is gathered here today. It is the form we share as we love one another. My invitation to you today, my dear friends, is to re-string your cello, then move your fingers, play in an ensemble, to play in symphony.