Open To Understand

A Reflection on the Gospel for June 2nd, 2019:
The Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

Luke 24.44-53

Jesus said to the disciples, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you — that everything written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”
Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.
“And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”
Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.

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Have you ever tried really hard to solve a difficult problem? To crack a riddle, or unravel a hopelessly tangled necklace or ball of yarn? To find orientation in the midst of an all-too-real, complicated personal situation? To confront awkwardness or pain in our relationships with others? To make sense of a traumatic event beyond our control, or to admit fault? These things can be oh, so difficult — and in my experience, the more I stare at and wrestle with a problem, often the harder it gets to solve.

As humans, we desire to understand and control things. Part of the mystery of faith is that it is difficult to understand — but in my experience, oddly enough, it seems that if I surrender my desire to understand, somehow I become able to do so. God continually makes things make sense in and through Jesus. This is the line that stood out to me in this reading: “Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures”. Without Jesus to explain, how could the disciples possibly have understood what was happening in those days of complete disorientation?

Before I knew about faith, I lived with great confidence in my own ability to understand and to control, and I soon discovered I was moving deeper and deeper into disorientation. I lived through times when I didn’t know which end was up; where there were many possible solutions to problems, but the best one was not obvious. Into places where my own mind, my own decisions, and my own desires seemed to just keep me moving deeper into dissatisfaction, into division, and into despair. Where that ball of yarn just kept becoming more and more tangled, and I just couldn’t find the end. It still amazes me that it was Christianity, the thing that had always seemed most unlikely to help me, that drew me in. It was what intrigued me, what made me look. The beauty of the mystery, the space that is created for hope in the promise of true and deep restoration and reconciliation — I had never truly found that anywhere else.

"It still amazes me that it was Christianity, the thing that had always seemed most unlikely to help me, that drew me in."

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For me, the beauty of our faith lies in that God has given us the gift of Jesus’ life that so beautifully mirrors our own lives — not that we are without sin, but that we are born with a purpose, that we live, we love, and we suffer. Through Jesus, we can see where we have contributed to our own suffering, and we can see where what has happened to us was not what God would have wanted. Through His forgiveness and His tender love, we can be healed. The restoration of His body in the resurrection orients us toward the One who restores us and the ascension shows us we can be raised up to be fully who we are intended to be, and to live with authentic joy. He opens our minds to understand the scriptures; He is the answer to the puzzle, which, at first glance, makes no sense at all. ​

​Lindsay Elford

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