Where is he?  We have several answers. He has gone to his God and our God. He is in heaven. He is at the right hand of God Almighty. What does this mean? Someone once suggested that, like an author who is creating a play, as far as the creation of our space and time is concerned, Christ (one of the figures in the play) was ‘written out’ at that point. Others have suggested that ‘heaven’ where Jesus is, is  like another wave length in a radio. As we switch from one station to another, we leave one world and ‘arrive’ at the other. 

There was a time when some met Jesus, the eternal Word made flesh,  as we meet each other. Notably, his mother and father, and sisters and brothers, met him. And then his disciples met him, who when they talked with Jesus more often than not seemed to be puzzled by what he had to say about himself. Then there was the crucifixion, watched by quite a few; and his rising again, when he was seen by his disciples again, who talked to him, and more importantly, were talked to by Jesus.

After his crucifixion, the angels who attended the place where Jesus was buried, said to those perplexed men and women who brought spices to anoint him. ‘He is not here’. They went on: ‘He is risen.’ (Lk.26. 6) But since then the words ‘He is not here’,  prevailed. True, and thankfully, he was resurrected, and remained so. And for a while he remained with his disciples, still instructing them. But then he ascended, and such words about not being here came to have a more permanent significance. Since his ascension, when a cloud received him, those man years ago, it has been that true that he is not here,

Where is he?  We have several answers. He has gone to his God and our God. He is in heaven. He is at the right hand of God Almighty. What does this mean? Someone once suggested that, like an author who is creating a play, as far as the creation of our space and time is concerned, Christ (one of the figures in the play) was ‘written out’ at that point. Others have suggested that ‘heaven’ where Jesus is, is  like another wave length in a radio. As we switch from one station to another, we leave one world and ‘arrive’ at the other.

These are only analogies, with many deficiencies. But they do make the point that ‘the heavenly’ is not make-believe, but is a reality that is different from ‘the earthly’. Each has its own temporal sequencies (and frequencies!), which at certain points merge, as in Christ’s ascension, and in the appearance of the risen Christ to Paul on the road to Damascus, (Acts 9). Perhaps there is such a merging in the story of the account of Elijah who ‘went up by a whirlwind into heaven’  (2 Kings 2.11)   and another merging later when  Elisha prayed for the young man’s eyes to be open. ‘And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all round Elisha.’ (2 Kings 6.17) And of course, there is Paul on the road to Damascus, converted and commissioned as the Apostle to the Gentiles. But again, rather unclear.

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