9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”  (Acts 1: 9-11)

 

I was lookin’ for love in all the wrong places

Lookin’ for love in too many faces

Searchin’ their eyes

Lookin’ for traces of what I’m dreaming of  (“Lookin’ for Love” by Bob Morrison, Patti Ryan, Wanda Mallette)

 

Back when I was a youth group going teenager, (about 45 years ago – crazy to think, eh!) there was this one classic skit that we would perform at least every year.  I’m not sure its so much a skit as it is a practical joke, because some of us more ‘senior’ youth group people (the 15+ crew), would pull it with the younger ‘newbies’ to youth group.  Here’s how it went:  one of us would walk in, holding a bucket.  Then they would stop in the middle of the room and stare at a random spot on the ceiling.  Another one or two of us would join him in the centre of the room, and would stare up at the same spot on the ceiling.  As the rest of the youth group came in the room, we would see how many of them would also stand, looking up at this random spot on the ceiling until someone finally broke down and asked what we were staring at. 

 

Which would prompt person 1 to look at them, shrug their shoulders and say “Nothing.  I just have a crick in my neck”.

 

Which would mean that all of us in on the joke would laugh like it was the funniest thing we’d ever done in our lives. 

 

This week as I preparing for Sunday morning worship, I had a flashback to that moment in Youth Group as I was reading the Acts scripture.  I mean, really.  Jesus has ascended – um just like he said, people!! And the disciples are all standing there, staring at the clouds as if there’s a spot on ceiling.  And it took two angels to say to them “what are you idiots staring at?”. 

 

I wonder if they angels cracked up as much as us Senior Youth did.  Because, really, the whole scenario is kinda ridiculous.  I mean, the disciples had been repeatedly told by Jesus that he was going to ascend.  They had been repeatedly told that they knew how to handle things when he was gone, and it was all about ushering in a new way of doing things.  And here they were, staring up at the clouds as if their view of heaven was being momentarily blocked.  My vivid imagination has the group of them in their dusty disciple robes and sandals, staring up at the clouds, slack-jawed with a little spittle running down one side of their mouth, and then shaking their heads with sheepish grins when the angels point out that they were looking at nothing. 

 

We do spend a lot of time looking for nothing, don’t we.  We spend a lot of time looking for reassurance, or credibility, or hope or even love, in places where we think it ought to be, instead of places where we’ve actually been told it is.  We search for God and our faith in vaporous clouds, because we think that’s where heaven is supposed to be, even though we have been told since we were tiny that we are living in eternity right now, and that God can be found all around us.  We look for hope in lofty ideals and plans instead of recognizing that hope has been offered to us simply if we love one another they way God loves us. 

 

So, my Bethel Friends, I hope that you’ll take a moment from staring at the clouds as if that’s how you’ll see God, and recognize that all of this “lookin’ for love in all the wrong places” will just give you a crick in your neck, and maybe will mean that someone younger and less savvy that you gets the same crick in their neck.  Take your stare off of the ceiling, and instead look around.  Because that’s where you’ll see God. 

 

Blessings today, and remember you are loved. 

~Rev. Lynne (Your church mouse).