Tags
apostles, Ascension, by heart, salvation history, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, upper room, waiting, words of Jesus
I’m thinking again today about that upper room that housed the apostles in their time of waiting after the Ascension, the departure of Christ from physical presence on the earth. (See blog post of 5/30.) I don’t know that I have ever considered it in such a visceral way but I have so many questions now that will only be answered in my imaginings. Where else could I go for information? There is so little specificity in most of the gospel stories that it’s difficult to get a good sense of what happened in what was only meagerly presented. I’m not interested in theological treatises for answers.
Here’s what I mean. If I consider the “upper room” as the same or similar to what was mentioned at the time of the Last Supper, I see a long table as the focal point of the room. What happens then if the apostles want to sleep during their nine days of waiting? And how did they pass the time up there? I trust that prayer was their major occupation but when did they eat? And where did they get food? Should the gospel writers be talking about upper rooms instead of one room?
This may sound like silliness and I don’t mean to be irreverent but sometimes – for some of us who are concrete thinkers – it’s helpful to know all we can about the events of our “salvation history.” As I type that sentence I hear the often repeated adage: “Just take it on faith.” In reality, I guess that is what we’re always called to do. There are lots of places to go for the research of scholars through the ages who have written theological tracts and spiritual writers who have delved into the words of Jesus. Ultimately, however, it is a question of letting go of the need for certainly about facts and giving ourselves over to the acceptance of the love that we have come to know “by heart.”
Today is a good day to take a break and place myself in the silence of that upper room for awhile, waiting with the others for the outpouring of the Spirit that will surely come when we have made ourselves ready – perhaps in a week’s time…or maybe even today! And then who will I be? What will the fire of God ignite in me? I guess I’ll wait and expect/accept whatever comes…in God’s time, not mine.
Just a thought (and i think concretely, too). I don’t know much about the construction of homes at that time, but I do know about many homes in the rural small towns in the middle east. Most have several floors. There’s a floor for receiving guests and cooking (although some have an attached cook house), often another one is adjacent for dining/entertaining, then you go up a floor for sleeping (parents) – the the girls sleep upstairs from them and the boys on the top floor. What scripture calls the “upper room” could easily simply refer to one of these levels, likely even to the unmarried male’s top floor sleeping quarters. The images that we often have been provided are based on our western experiences and are woefully incomplete. I think that it’s safe to say that this model could be realistic I have a close family member who has spent time in rural Morocco visiting a dear friend’s family and this is based on her experience. We lack an understanding of their customs and practices (like women needing to be covered up when outdoors due to blowing (dirty) sand and their lack of water for washing clothes; male/family escorts when going ot the bazaar due to thieves, etc.). There were reasons then – and some of the same reasons still exist. And some have become institutionalized in religious practice, sort of like genuflection when entering a holy place and other medieval/ancient practices.