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Thursday, Sixth Week of Easter

While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going, suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them. They said, "Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.”

Acts 1: 10-11

Luke pictures the disciples straining upward to see the distant speck that by now has soared out of sight.

Back when we began these Easter Season meditations, the women came to the empty tomb and saw “two men in white robes” who explained what had taken place in the resurrection.

Now Luke brings these two back again to explain what has taken place in the Ascension. They begin with a question which implies, “You’ve got things to do…more than just standing here watching.” Christ’s words just a few verses earlier echo in our ears: “You will be witnesses to me.”

The angels them explain two things to them:

(1) Jesus “has been taken up from you.” From now on, he will be seen no more in visible form, but will lead them through his Spirit.

(2) Jesus will come back in the same way you saw him go.” i.e. visibly. We don’t know the time of his visible return, but we do know that he will manifest himself again.

St. Paul said, “We walk by faith, not my sight.” What a difference it makes to believe all this!

Spend some quiet time with the Risen Lord.

May 6, 2005

A Sabbath Day’s Journey

The Book of Genesis says: “Since on the seventh day God was finished with the work he had been doing, he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had undertaken. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work he had done in creation.”

In Jesus’ time, the average person had to work every day to eke out a living. But the chosen people had been adopted into God’s royal family. So, even if they were poor, on the Sabbath they did what the rich people did. They dressed up, ate well, and took it easy.

Then came questions about the fine details. What constituted work? Could they feed their animals on the Sabbath? Could they travel?

Legal interpretations were handed down, and a complicated tangle of Sabbath laws developed. The liberating spirit of the law which seemed so simple (“Take a day off.”) gave way to the letter of the law, and a fear of breaking one of the detailed Sabbath rules.

For instance, it had been determined that one could travel only 2,000 cubits on a Sabbath. A cubit (Latin for elbow) was the distance from the tip of the middle finger to the elbow, or about 18 inches. This meant that on a Sabbath one could not walk more than half a mile.

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Yom Shoah

A Jewish day of remembrance that has been added in modern times is observed on this date. Yom Shoah (Hebrew for “Day of Desolation”) commemorates the Holocaust – the systematic slaughter of six million Jewish men, women and children during World War II.