The uplifting of Jesus.
The evangelist employs two different words, both meaning "he was taken or lifted up" (Acts 1:2, Acts 1:9).
I. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE UPLIFTING. The human is raised into the Divine. The body of humiliation is translated into a form of glory. Exaltation crowns self-abasement. The self-emptied One for love's sake becomes the depository for all time of the Divine fullness. For our sake the descent from heaven, and the return thither still for our sake. Heaven woos earth in the Incarnation, and in the Ascension earth is wedded to heaven forever. It is the pledge of permanent intercourse and special occasional visitations from God to man. "The Ascension—that pole-star of our night!" (E. Irving).
II. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CLOUD. It was ever a symbol of God. It veils, yet reveals; hides, yet manifests him. The definite ever passes into the indefinite; the visible form into the fainter symbol. Men may ask, "Where is he who came and loved our clay?" The answer is in the cloud-symbol. As in its beauty we see it float between heaven and earth, half-dense and half-transparent with the solar glory, we have the image of the vanished Jesus in the world of pious thought. He is the indefinable link between the world of sense and the super sensual. We cannot analyze the truth. We see it, we feel it, by the spiritual aesthesis; and this is better than all definition.
III. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ANGELS' WORDS. We gaze into the mysterious Divine beyond of our life. Our limited horizon melts into the Infinite. What was more knowable than the living and loving Jesus of Nazareth? Here at last the spell of Divine silence seemed to have been broken, and the unutterable One had uttered himself in an articulate voice, and the indefinable and inimitable in form had clothed himself in a form recognizable by all. Yet now this form melts again into the indefinable; this voice ceases in a hush of mystery restored. Well may we stand gazing into the ether. Was the whole an illusion? Not so; but what God has once revealed remains a spiritual possession for all time. And more; it is the pledge that God will repeat the revelation. Christ will come again; the cloud will reappear; out of the mystery voices will again be heard, the express Image will again stand clear for recognition. Here is a Divine process; out of the indefinable into the definable, back to the indefinable again. Christ appears to disappear, again to reappear; and so
"That one Face, far from vanish, rather grows;
Becomes our universe that feels and knows!"
Let us think that "every cloud that veileth love itself is love." In those alternate revealings and hidings of God from us lies the trial of faith, more precious than gold.—J.