The space age has changed our perceptions of what constitutes “up” and “down” in ways that could not have been imagined by the evangelists. On the evening news we see chatty astronauts floating weightless through the International Space Station. A quick computer search for “Hubble Telescope” pulls up 25 years of amazing images of fantastic galaxies far beyond the imaginings of science fiction.
But earth’s gravity remains our primary reference point: “down” is where gravity holds us; “up” is toward the skies, slipping “the surly bonds of earth.” (That phrase is in the first line of “High Flight,” a sonnet by John Gillespie Magee, Jr., a favorite among aviators and astronauts and quoted by President Ronald Reagan after the Challenger disaster in 1986.) We talk—and sing—about Jesus rising into the heavens; we still think in terms of heaven being “up” and hell being “down.”
We need to expand our understanding and our mental and musical images far beyond the limits of “up” and “down.” We know that Jesus lived, died, and appeared, living, to his disciples after his death. Then he was taken from their sight. Where did he go? We don’t know where, or how, any more than they did at that point in history. What we do know is that Jesus is still with us, among us, within us—Emmanuel. We believe that we will rise like him, but in ways that we cannot comprehend. Which is why David Haas’s “We Will Rise Again” speaks to us in language that avoids the limitations of “up” and “down”:
Lift up your eyes and see who made the stars.
I lead you, and I know you, I call you each by name.
Fear not, I am with you. ...
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from Religious Clip Art for the Liturgical Year (A, B, and C).
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