You can’t say a proper good-bye now when someone dies.

And this has profound implications.

It increases our suffering, and our need for comfort and consolation.

But where will that come from?

 

Our reading today provides that answer:

From the shelter and canopy of God’s enduring presence with God’s people.

I think we need to stop hoarding.

And to remember the preschool adage, 

that sharing is caring.

Our first reading speaks to today’s situation, of having come through the wilderness of a closed church building, 

these 7 months of worship desert,… 

and now we are (almost) back in the promised  land, 

back in church, at least,

well …some of us, and for how long, …remains to be seen.

We see that with Jesus Christ.

Jesus got down low, just like a good football lineman,

Jesus humbled himself by taking on human form.

And thus became much more powerful, 

more able to take on the enemies of sin, death 

and all that separates us from God and one another.

One of the most popular and successful marketing campaigns of the last decade was made to promote the chocolate candy bar Snickers.

Part of a major overhaul of their brand, 

the motto for the new advertisements were:

“You are not you when you’re hungry.”

God calls, and humans respond.

God is revealed in times of trouble, when people cry out in pain, 

out of fear, out of anger over injustice.

Is God angry at us?

Is God punishing us through this coronavirus pandemic?

But perhaps suffering in the past two weeks has really risen to our consciousness in what’s being called the racial pandemic, 

or the greatest global racial unrest in history.

At its core is the suffering of Black, Indigenous and People of Colour who suffer at the hands of systemic injustice and racism in structures of our society.

So this passage (Numbers 11) is perhaps a good pandemic reference for us.

The Holy Spirit is poured out on those even if they’re not present,

And if we hold this as true, we can say that communion 

(mediated by the Holy Spirit) is also valid if we’re scattered all about.

So the Feast of the Ascension should be important to us as worshipping Christians, but it isn’t.

 

Why not?

I think part of it, is that it’s an awkward story for us 

modern enlightened people.