During Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, C4SO celebrates artist He Qi, who reinterprets sacred art within an ancient Chinese art idiom. His work is a blend of Chinese folk art and traditional painting technique with the iconography of the Western Middle Ages and Modern Art. On each Sunday during May, we have licensed one of He’s paintings to illuminate one of the lectionary readings. We will provide prompts for you to do Visio Divina, or “sacred seeing,” an ancient form of Christian prayer in which we allow our hearts and imaginations to enter into a sacred image to see what God might have to show us.
Painting Look Toward Heaven by He Qi
Lectionary Reading | Sunday, May 16: Luke 24:44-53 and John 17:11-19
Luke 24:44-53
He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”
Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”
When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.
John 17:11-19
I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.
“I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by[c] the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.”
Visio Divina | Prompt
We read in Luke that as Jesus ascended into heaven, He was blessing the disciples. Spend some time imagining that blessing. What might Jesus have said? What might have been the content and call of this blessing? Place yourself in the image. What word of blessing might Jesus want to speak over you today?
Notice that Jesus is absent from our image, just as He is when Luke concludes his Gospel. Yet the disciples are recorded worshiping and blessing God. There are smiles on their faces in our image. How can Jesus’ absence be seen as love and not abandonment? Do you ever feel abandoned by God, like Jesus has left the building and is no longer with you? Allow this image to help you. Allow the story of the Ascension to encourage you in those times of feeling abandoned.
Can you hold in your heart that God is both transcendent and immanent—that God is closer than your breath while simultaneously being higher than the stars above? What the significance of this paradox to you?
Finally, receive the promise Jesus speaks of in v. 49, the promise of the Father that we know to be the Holy Spirit. Pray for fresh awareness of that promise in your life, fresh power from that promised Spirit, and increased opportunity to be that witness Jesus spoke of. Look up at the sky if you can, remembering Jesus has taken up residence once again in heaven. He speaks these promises to you from the right hand of the Father. Receive His promises now as you ponder that your Friend and Savior has ascended for you and for the sake of the world.