When I was about thirteen years of age, I made my first mountain backpacking trip with a group of ten other fellow campers. It was just an overnight, up to the Summit of Mount Washington in New Hampshire. We carried packs weighing not more than twenty-five or thirty pounds. Not heavy as packs go, but as we climbed, the packs became heavy enough for our young shoulders. As we ascended, we would stop to rest, and the breaks in the thinning forest would show how far we had climbed as well give definite indication that we needed to climb much higher. For a while it seemed that there was always one higher slope ahead of us in the distance, and when we surmounted that one, there was one more behind that, and this pattern seemed to go on and on.
Finally beyond the tree line where only short scrub pines would survive we reached a rocky plateau with a small pond called the Lake of the Clouds where we camped for the night. From there, when the clouds broke, we could see clearly the summit of Mount Washington. You would think that our packs would have seemed lighter the next morning when we put them on, but to us they seemed even heavier than the day before. Up we went along the shoulder of the summit, negotiating the trail over the boulders an ancient glacier had tossed around like marbles. When at last we got to the top, we threw off our packs and experienced a strange exhilaration. Our bodies felt so light, it seemed as if we could practically bounce around with our feet defying gravity. We had never realized how easy it was simply to walk. Of course the sensation eventually wore off, but when we put our packs on again to descend the mountain, this time they seemed considerably lighter and easier to bear. Years later, even if we never would climb Mt. Washington again, we could always say to ourselves, I was there, I did it, and I will never forget the exhilaration on reaching the top.
The months of May and June are traditionally scheduled for graduations, celebrations marking the culmination of something significant to be sure, but also signifying a new beginning. Every year be it in Butterfield Stadium or Schoellkopf, at TC 3 or Cortland I’m sure a significant number of the graduates regret the thought of leaving. Yet the reality is that from the day they first walked on campus as students, they were being prepared to leave. A university is a way station, not a terminal.
The Easter season began with Mary and her friends going to anoint he body of their dead rabbi. They carried along with them so many heavy things to the cemetery— painful memories, failures, a future that seemed only filled with past regrets, the stuff of nightmares and the stifling atmosphere of crumbling sepulchers. Mary and her friends made an astounding discovery. She was told, “Jesus is risen! Don’t seek him among the dead. Go, for you are sent to tell the others to look for Jesus’ living presence among you. The women left the graveyard, their heavy packs of the past dropped by the side of the road.
In one sense, the Ascension is the close of the liturgical celebration of the Easter season. It, too, proclaims that we are sent to be witnesses of the risen and living Lord. I picture the Ascension on a sunny day with large puffy cumulus clouds gathering speed across a blue sky. The disciples are on top of a hill with a grand view in every direction. The sun seems to have released the scent of fresh buds on the tips of trees and green shoots from the earth. Nonetheless, it never seems like summer up there. There is a good stiff wind with gusts that often bite, making it hard to hear all of Jesus’ exact words, but it is unmistakable what Jesus tells them, “ I am sending you as witnesses to all corners of the earth. Do not try to remain here, looking for me, but go out into the world, to all the other places shown before you, and there you will discover my presence.” As they return from the summit, they also find that their spirits have been recharged with new energy and their steps are light.
We close the Easter season, thankful that we are here together. We so need to treasure these occasions, be it a grand liturgical festival in a gothic cathedral with the sound of large organ pipes reverberating with the high stone arches or a simple quiet Eucharist around a small table in a modest room. The risen Lord teaches us how to unload all those heavy packs we’ve brought with us and gives our spirits a fresh lightness we never would have dreamed of. It’s so tempting for us never to want such things to end. It still remains a brutal world out there we have to go back to. Mary wanted to hold on to Jesus when she saw him Easter morning in front of the empty tomb, just as the disciples wanted Jesus to stay with them at Ascension Day in the exhilaration of standing above the world around them. But neither place was appropriate for a permanent meeting place. Take my word for it, if you can avoid it, you don’t pitch a tent or try to cook a leisurely meal on top of a windy exposed summit.
Picture being with Jesus on Ascension Day. Jesus, after acknowledging where you have been and our climb to this point says, “Do not stand around looking for me to come back here again on this hill. Today you stand high above Cayuga’s waters, but I am calling you even higher above Cayuga’s waters. To be sure the summits you have climbed often have marked celebrated accomplishments, but more importantly those summits usually reveal where you are called to go.
We leave Ascension Day and the Easter Season, with our Lord’s blessing. In some sense our feet do not seem so heavy and there is a new spring in our step, for the Ascension is not God sending us away but sending us forth, with the promise that we will share such exhilarating times again.
And I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
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