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“Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

You cannot blame the apostles for hoping that way on Ascension Day, even if that must have exasperated the Lord who for forty days after Easter had been meeting with and “speaking [to them] about the kingdom of God.” Forty days is a long time to pick apart and process all that was revealed in Jesus Christ from Bethlehem to Bethany, from that holy night in a manger to the day he was taken up to heaven.

On the fortieth day (which was the Ascension), the Lord must have realized how slow we are to absorb the mysteries of life and redemption, and that the Holy Spirit therefore had to work double time on the apostles (and on us) who had much learning and unlearning to do.

The problem with the apostles’ hope is that they did not quite comprehend till the very end (end being the point of Jesus’ ascension and bodily departure from this world) that the kingdom was not a political entity. The Lord’s “reign” was far more than political liberation or hegemony.

Still, you cannot blame them for hoping that change was on the way. Just as you cannot blame the Filipinos who after this historic election are now full of hope that at long last this nation will ascend and move forward.

The caveat to our hope in the wake of the election is that Noynoy is not the Lord and it will surely take more than a President and all the President’s men to get us out of the rut we’ve dug for ourselves these last few decades.

Still, even if restoring the republic cannot be equated with the coming of the kingdom, you cannot blame us for the euphoria and for believing that things are at last looking up.

“Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky?”

According to a reflection on adult prayer, one distinct quality of prayer by grown-ups is that after many years of praying, the grown-up eventually prays in, not up. As children, when we prayed, we moved our lips and turned our gaze heavenward, like toddlers looking at balloons released to the sky until they are no more.

Now that we’ve grown old enough to fly through clouds, we pray knowing that heaven is more than a fluffy place above. We pray realizing that the divine Presence is no longer something exterior to us but as some One intimately close to us, breathing all the life that is in us, in a temple we hardly believe to be sacred at times because that temple is our body.

We grow to realize that if there is any redeeming to do, it will have to come from deep within ourselves, and not solely from some Moses with a stick who will part the waves on the way from Egypt to the Promised Land. Even walking through the desert (for forty years, mind you, that means a lifetime) demands some interior wrangling and inner resolve.

This is why we do well to temper our hope in political messiahs especially right after the elections. When the honeymoon is over, our political leaders will buckle down to work on the horsetrading and compromises that are part of the political “getting-things-done” exercise. They will fulfill some of our dreams but they will also renege on their promises. Some will wield power for the common good and in behalf of those who are powerless (we hope), and some will crucify and be crucified along the way.

This is not to say that this wonderful hope we have recovered in the aftermath of the elections is misplaced. Elections mark promising shifts we make in those we vest with political power. We will look up to these leaders to take us out of slavery, when in truth where we need to look the most is neither up nor out but inside ourselves.

Looking in, I found the real cause for hope while waiting four hours to vote. I was only one of the multitudes who had queued on election day to express our deep desire for change. Filipinos everywhere lined up to vote, believing patiently that their choice still matters in the life of this nation. Reading about that heroic teacher in Mindanao who was found clutching a PCOP machine in her arms, risking her life while hiding to protect it from armed goons, I knew where the true wellsprings of our hope can be found. Looking in, I discovered where redemption begins.

Indeed, men of Galilee, the angels are right to ask why must we be standing here looking at the sky? Should we not rather be looking in, no farther than our very selves, now “clothed with power from on high”?

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