![]() We do this in the church, but we also do this in our own personal lives as well. It’s not that we don’t have to make decisions about important practical realities, it’s just that we can so easily get stuck there and invest our time, energy, focus, and money on things that matter comparatively little. We can probably all think of times and ways in which the churches we know and love have spent weeks, months, or even years fighting about trivial things from the color of the carpet to who will have access to our buildings to how exactly to take Communion. We really do spend our time – way too much of our time – stuck, simply looking in the wrong direction instead of living by faith in what God’s Holy Spirit is calling us to do. While it sounds like an interesting place to visit, even if this were the actual footprint of Jesus, do any of us really believe that Jesus would want us to spend so much time focused on his footprint, fighting over and about it, and vying for control over that little spot of earth? This sounds more like material for a Monty Python skit than a spiritual experience, especially in light of the angel’s original message: “Move on!”īut while this shrine to a footprint and Pastor Harold Camping and his followers may seem like extreme examples, they clearly reveal something that is true about all of us as humans. Today it is called the Chapel of the Ascension, and it’s a spot that both Christian and Muslim pilgrims travel to see and revere as a holy place by offering their worship and prayers. The chapel that was built and surrounds the footprint has been destroyed and erected time and time again. This spot has been fought over by Christians, Christian groups, and Muslims over the centuries. There is a shrine that has been built around the imprint of a foot: and it is deeply held by many that it is the footprint of Jesus’ right foot, his last point of physical contact with the earth. In fact, if you visit the Holy Land today, you can go to the place where it is believed that Jesus actually ascended on the Mount of Olives. It is ironic to note, then, that we humans are still stuck on that spot where Jesus ascended, despite the message of the angels. Two angels had to come and intervene according to the text, and asked them, “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” and commended them on their way back to Jerusalem. Notice that after Jesus ascended, his disciples remained there, standing in place, looking, and gazing up into heaven. Yet even as soon as the Ascension occurred, we read that Jesus’ followers got stuck and focused on the wrong thing. ![]() It was necessary for Jesus to ascend to heaven, Jesus said, so that the Holy Spirit could descend upon Jesus’ followers at Pentecost. This event is believed to have occurred 40 days following Jesus’ resurrection. Today, we commemorate the Ascension of Jesus into heaven. Rather than living in radical trust and faith in God about an open and unknown future, we frequently focus on what we think we know and can control and may find ourselves getting stuck on the wrong thing. It seems clear that we humans deeply desire to know what is going to happen and when it is going to happen. In today’s text, we read the disciples asking Jesus about the end times and Jesus states, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.” Still, many religious groups continue to try and predict “Judgment Day.” In fact, one Biblical scholar named Ian Gurney believes that Armageddon began in 1999 and so Judgment Day will happen in 2023. The campaign was a rather strange one given that the Scriptures are quite clear, including in the lesson appointed for today from Acts 1, that no one can know the day or hour of Christ’s return. Clearly, he was wrong, although Camping later claimed a spiritual judgment had actually taken place that day (which presumably would have been helpful information to have had earlier). Pastor Camping was so convinced of the date from his reading of the Bible, and he had attracted so many followers to this belief, that over $100 million dollars was spent on a nationwide advertising campaign for it. ![]() In early 2011 there were billboards plastered across the nation warning of Judgment Day on May 21, 2011, with the words, “The Bible guarantees it.” This was the day that had been predicted as Christ’s second coming by Pastor Harold Camping of Family Radio.
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