The Ascension is often thought of as a matter of Jesus going away from us. After rising from the dead, he spends fifty days with the disciples before going off in the setting sun, leaving us on our own to do the best we can. At least there’s Christmas to look forward to.

This suggests that the Ascension is a non-event. We expect more from Jesus, so let’s try again. Before ascending, Jesus promises that He will send the Holy Spirit to them. He won’t leave them orphans. We don’t have to wait until Christmas for a special treat after all; a special treat is coming in just a few days: ten days in Luke’s time scheme.

Then, what about the cloud that whisks Jesus away? Doesn’t that mean he’s gone? The German Bible scholar Gerhard Lohfink reminds us that a cloud covered the tabernacle while leading the Israelites through the desert. When it was time for the Israelites to move on, the cloud moved. When God wanted the Israelites to stay put, the cloud stayed put. All this is to say that the cloud was a sign of God’s presence. The cloud preserves the mystery. Nobody can see God. But the cloud makes it clear that God is very near to the Israelites, especially when they need God the most. (Lohfink: Between heaven and Earth, p. 162) And then there’s the cloud that filled the temple when Solomon dedicated it. Maybe God was as invisible as ever, but God sure was present. More recently for the disciples, a cloud covered them during the Transfiguration. Again, profound mystery in the midst of God’s amazingly close presence. So the cloud here means Jesus isn’t leaving after all.

Thinking Jesus is leaving them, the disciples are looking up at the rising cloud while two men in white ask them why they are doing that, suggesting they are looking in the wrong direction. The men in white tell them that Jesus will come in the same way they saw him go. (Acts 1: 11) That is, the men in white are redirecting the disciples back to the earth where, as Jesus had said, they will be his witnesses in Judea, Samaria , and the ends of the earth when the Holy Spirit comes. Not up in the sky, but on the earth, where Jesus will be more closely present than ever while they are doing that witnessing. At the end of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus specifies that their witnessing is about repentance and the forgiveness of sins. (Lk. 24: 47) This goes to say that if we look up at the sky looking for Jesus, we will find Jesus directing his attention—and ours—back to the earth.

In Ephesians, Paul prays that his readers will come to know the riches of the glorious inheritance of the saints that they will receive, riches of witnessing and forgiving. Paul goes on to wax eloquently about God’s power in raising Jesus to God’s right hand “in the heavenly places” from which Christ rules everything on the earth. (Eph. 1: 20) That is, Christ’s rising to the heights brings his forgiving love right back to the earth where he exercises his forgiving love among us, closer to us than we are to ourselves. When Paul writes of heavenly riches and of Christ, a crucified human who was raised from the dead and who now rules among us from such heights, his words sound like a dense cloud. It is hard to picture all this and that is the point. Paul’s words are a cloud like the cloud that covered the tabernacle in the desert and filled the temple. This cloud of words is a sign that the God whom we cannot see or comprehend is very close to us with unfathomable forgiving love. The cloud is all around us all the time. We just need to be alert to this guiding presence we can never understand. This is what the collect for this feast means when it says that Christ ascended so that he might fill all things.