Yesterday many churches observed the Ascension. Jesus rises from the ground, ascends, and when a cloud covers Him, He is no longer seen. Still today, no longer seen. If it strikes you as a strange story, the disciples who actually were there thought it strange too. “Men of Galilee, why do you stand here gazing into the sky?” (Acts 1:11)
People of faith wrestle with experiences that don’t fit our understanding of how things should work. Just as people don’t rise from the ground unaided, many of our natural experiences in life don’t seem to fit with the idea of a close, personal God who cares for us. When we find ourselves not seeing the goodness of God in our lives, we have only faith, only God’s promises of His goodness to us. We don’t see God. We don’t see Jesus. “No one has ever seen God.” (John 1:18) “You cannot see My face, for no one may see Me and live.” (Exodus 33:20) Since a hidden God, like rising from the ground unaided, goes against our natural desire to see and hear, to touch and experience, some people build idols and Americans worship worldly power, consumerism and celebrity. Living amidst worshippers of what is seen, we followers of Christ can only trust the promise. “This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen Him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:11)
When you have gone through tough times, I mean really tough, and had nothing to hang onto except the promises of God, then in hindsight you see that God, though hidden, truly is personal, close and caring. Faith does sustain us. Hymns say it; the Bible teaches it. “When all things seem against us to drive us to despair, we know one gate is open, one ear will hear our prayer.” “Faith shall cry as fails each sense, Jesus is my confidence.” “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18)
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