One minute he’s here
and the next minute gone
and no-one seems to know how.
‘Taken up to heaven’, says Mark.
‘As he was blessing them’, says Luke.
Not a word from John,
more concerned about Peter’s destiny.
And Matthew?
Just final instructions to his friends –
To baptize, to teach, to obey – but also –
a promise – ‘And I will be with you always
To the end of the age’.
Be thankful for that.
He was coming and going forty days,
kept surprising his friends who didn’t always
realise it was him,
like us, perhaps,
sometimes too dim, sometimes too fraught.
But just a glimpse will suffice,
that something familiar that finds us saying
‘There he goes again’ and a gentle reminder –
‘I did say I will be with you, didn’t I?’ –
‘To the end of the age.’
And so he will.
