He's gone! Sunday Readings: the Ascension (Y-not question the Sunday Readings)

by Sue, Sydney, Sunday, May 20, 2012, 16:28 (364 days ago) @ Ynot

There was a real event: Jesus went away. I have no idea exactly how the apostles experienced that. Maybe it just dawned on them that he was gone, much as it did on me a few days after the funeral, that our mother was really no longer here with us.

Jesus went away.

Tony, like Brian, I too appreciated your comparison with the experience many of us go through following the death of a parent, and have been thinking how it was for me after my father died, especially in that first six weeks or so after the event.  I remember dreaming about him, dreams in which he seemed so real, and imagining I had caught a glimpse of him in the street, at the same time knowing it could not possibly be him.  And now I wonder if that is what the disciples were talking about as far as Jesus' appearances to them in that time between Jesus' death and the Ascension event.

In my reading of women's spiritual autobiographies, mostly from across other religious traditions,  a spiritual teacher or guru often played an important role. Quite often though, that relationship was brought, seemingly prematurely, to an end by the death of the teacher.  For the woman concerned it might seem then as if the relationship had been for nothing.  In the following months a real dark night of the soul began, the death of hope, the loss of faith - a plunge into the abyss.

But then, that turned out not to be the end of the journey.  It was as if the last part of the spiritual path had to be walked alone, in order that the fullness of the mystery be realized. Reflecting on what had happenned in the lives of a few 20th century women, it seems to me that the disciples were on a similar path.  Their own journey could not be completed until Jesus was no longer with them.  Furthermore, that completion had to come about independently of Jesus, so that it couldn't be dismissed as arising out of his immediate influence or psychological power over them.

He went away. There was a period of intense mourning, culminating in the realization that, despite dreams and rumoured glimpses, he was not returning. Tony, I like your interpretation that this was a watershed moment, this ascension, this going away.     

  Jesus had manifested the presence of the mystery within himself.  That is what attracted the disciples to him.  But in the end he had to go, to plunge the disciples headlong into the shock of his absence.  Only then could they discover that the mystery had taken up residence within their own hearts, a small flame that flickered into life, then ontinued to burn brightly without Jesus being there.

Thanks Tony and all for a really interesting discussion, coming from so many different perspectives.

Sue