I-YOUniverse

Don’t you wonder what the ascension of Christ was like? Some sacred rendition of “Beam me up, Scottie”?

Or the disciples’ walk home?

Luke says they worshiped and were filled with great joy. Matthew adds “but some doubted.”

We don’t really know what a video camera would have recorded. My money’s on nothing. The Risen Christ is only for human eyes (and perhaps other critters’, too). But that still begs the question of what a skeptical reporter would have seen.

It all smacks of hocus pocus.

My childhood tradition ignored the Ascension. Oh, maybe a preacher pitched a sermon at it now and then, but mostly it got swallowed up by the Old Rugged Cross.

Baal Cult, Yahweh Style

The daily lectionary calls for the reading of Psalm 68 on the eve of the ascension. That I can get into.

Depending on who you read, psalm 68 is early or late. Everybody agrees it’s difficult, at points barely translatable.

It celebrates Yah, rider on the clouds, Anglo-Saxon like:

Yah Cloud-Rider, Clap of Thunder-Roarer.

It’s also barely Yahwistic, a brash borrowing from the cult of Baal, Canaanite God of thunder. “Escape from death” (68.20) alludes to the primordial conflict between Baal and Mot, God of death. It celebrates how God shatters the hairy crown of the guilty, and promises a blood bath for the righteous to enjoy.

Worship in Temple and Heart

It transports us to the Temple, filled with the smoke of incense and sacrifice, maidens dancing, beating tambourines on palm and thigh, shofars blaring, the mighty Ark of the Covenant Shaddai’s throne taking its place at the head of the great congregation.

It reminds us that, although Yahweh’s might exceeds that of Egypt and all the wild animals that live among the reeds, compassion for orphans, widows, the desolate and prisoners is God’s key attribute.

It insists that we humans define ourselves by our response to God, that the humble and faithful will spiritually prosper, but the rebellious will live in a parched land.

Wilderness Wandering

I’ve been trudging through the desert these past few weeks:

O God, you are my God, I seek you,
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
     as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. Psalms 63:1 (NRSV)

Or is it, “God, I’m sick of you”? Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner!

The whirr of my visiting friend’s jam packed schedule, extravert’s delight, and his bone-shattering fatigue. The stunning poverty and degradation which is Africa. My wife’s joyful integration into the United Methodist fold, while I remain of my own choosing outside the camp (Heb 13.13).

Outside the Camp

I prefer the Tent of meeting to the Tabernacle (Exo 33.7-11). A verse or two, a deep commentary (not just intellectual, but spirit-filled), a blank sheet of paper, a waiting heart.

I remember as a college student serving on staff at Glorieta Baptist Conference Center for the summer, and during music week the presentation of Handel’s Messiah, 2500 trained voices singing the Hallelujah Chorus together.

But that’s all gone with the wind.

What remains is the sound of sheer silence, and the fresh scent of rain far out across the desolation of the desert.