The feast of Ascension puts a question to us: Where is Jesus? Where do we really find Jesus? Are we disciples of a memory only? Or, are we disciples of a living person? And if of a living person, where does that person live? Are we disciples of a teaching once spoken in the past? Or, are we disciples of a teacher still speaking? And if our teacher still speaks, where - when does he speak?

Where do we find Jesus? That's the question Luke, the author of our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, is dealing with. Quite graphically Luke portrays Jesus being lifted up and disappearing into a cloud. The imagery wants to tell us Jesus is now with the Father. That's what the imagery of being lifted up into a cloud meant in Luke's day. It would be like our saying: "He has passed on to his reward." Jesus is now with the Father. So that's one answer to our question. Where is Jesus? He's with the Father.

But Luke tells us something more. As the disciples are looking up into the sky, two men all dressed in white appear to them and ask: "Why are you looking up into the sky? Jesus is now with the Father - but he is also with you." You might remember the same two men all dressed in white appeared to the disciples at the empty tomb on Easter morning. There they asked: "Why do you seek the Living One among the dead? He is not here, but has been raised." Jesus, the Risen One, is among the living, not the dead - is to be found in the present, not the past. And so too Jesus, the Ascended One, is not to be found up above in some faraway heaven. Don't look up; he's not there.

So, where is Jesus? The gospel reading from Matthew has Jesus saying to the disciples: "Behold, I am with you always, every single day, day in, day out." In Luke's gospel it is this realization that allows the disciples to leave the site of Jesus' so-called departure with great joy. They return to Jerusalem and to the rest of their lives in great joy: "Jesus is with us always."

This feast of Ascension is trying to tell us that Jesus, the Risen and Ascended One, is kind of like a hybrid. We talk about cars being "hybrids" - they run on both gas and electricity. Well, Jesus kind of runs on the Father but also runs on us. In fact the clear emphasis of the gospels and epistles is to show us how Jesus runs on us - how Jesus becomes present in us and through us. Paul tells us in his letter to the Colossians: "…your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory." [Col 3, 3-4] In John's gospel Jesus tells his disciples they will recognize his presence when they "feed his sheep", meaning, they will recognize his presence when they actively see to the needs of others. It is then they will know, as Jesus puts it, that "I am in you and you are in me."

The Ascension gives us a mission: ever to search for Jesus' living presence - his nearness and nowness in us and through us. That search will lead us into one another's lives. It will make a community - a church of us.

Think of it - being a community where we actually search for and find the Living Christ - in the love we have for one another - in the lives we share with one another.

Where is Jesus? Where do we find him? Think of it - in an awesome and utterly life-defining way, we are becoming the Jesus we have been searching for. We are his new presence. We are his return.