"From a distance, God is watching you!"

Lyrics of a song: "From a distance, God is watching you!"

Really?

The Ascension would seem to validate these lyrics.

The melody of this song is beautiful, but what does it really tell us about God?

Especially in the midst of this pandemic, where IS God?

What is the Ascension about absence or presence?

Bear i mind the last words of Jesus are about presence:

"Behold! I am with you all days until the end of the world!"

"So men of Galilee,why ae you standing up, gazing at the heavens?"

The Gospel thus assures us of not a distant uninterested God, but God who has come close and remains close in the midst of suffering. Jesus stands with us because of the Passover Mystery which places his Spirit in our midst.

And so we pray:

Come Lord Jesus, bind up our wounds.

bring us together in the midst of separation.

We share the kinship of uncertainity and anxiety.

Send your Spirit, the Comforter.

Do not watch us "from afar,"

but may we be comforted by youe abiding presence.

Amen