The Eleven walk the dusklit streets of Jerusalem. They are quiet.

The streets are quieting. They walk as in a daze. They turn this way and that without any particular thoughts in mind. They are returning to the upper room of the Passover week. (The owner of the house continues in his generosity toward the Fellowship.)

They arrive before the house, pass the length of the front, turn its corner; climb the outside stairs. They arrive at that now-familiar upstairs door. They enter the room and greet those assembled there with a shake of the head.

Those in the room were looking for Jesus in their midst.

His second cloak is hanging over a chair at the opposite corner, past the table. He’d left it draped there before they’d headed out for the picnic.

It will be ten minutes at least before the tale of the Ascension is told. 

 * * *

“So what should we do now?” one of the upper room-dwellers asks.

“Pray,” one of the Eleven responds.

Murmurs of assent fill the upper room. (Everyone is still internalizing the telling of Jesus’ skyward levitation; the testimony, too, of the angelic heralds.) Everyone bows their head in the customary Jewish manner.

“O Thou our God,” one of the voices starts intoning, “we comest unto Thee abject and unworthy. We are as nothing in Thy sight. We know Thee only at remove and it is unto Thee we—”

“Stop!” a voice in the room interrupts.

Every eye opens: shocked. They look over in the direction of the interrupter.

“I think He means us to approach differently now,” the interrupter, a young woman, says quietly.

Everyone waits for her to lead off.

* * *

It’s been that sort of silence where everything begins to come into auditory focus: the sound of everyone’s breathing, the rustle of cloaks and tunics at the slightest move, a scuff of a sandal’s inadvertent movement on the dusty wood floor, the guttering of one of the lamps, a sudden shout of a voice in the streets, someone in the room clearing their throat, the wind picking up for a moment and whistling through one of the west-facing shutters. Everyone in the upper room is aware of every one of these sounds.

And they are breathless to see how she’ll set off upon her prayer.

She lifts her head—her eyes closed—unto the throneroom of Heaven, imagining its glories as she does. “Jesus,” she whispers gently, softly, “it’s us. Here we are.”

* * * 

“Jesus,” He hears His name from the throne of Heaven, “it’s us. Here we are.” A smile crosses the face of the King of Kings. He sits back upon the throne. He is, suddenly, visibly, altogether relaxed.

You see, all of it—

His stepping-down from this place; His nine-months’ gestation; the loss-of-control of His youngest youth; the slow burgeoning understanding of His identity, growing older; the complete anonymity of His first thirty years; the twelve-thousand-odd days of His human life; the challenge of beginning His ministry; the calling of those first few; the antagonisms of the religious leaders; the sheer exhaustion of those next three years; the relentlessness of the needs of the people; the acclaim of the people; the betrayal of the people; the trial; crucifixion; death; the defeating of hell and the grave; the resurrection; the reappearances; the ascension; the re-approach to this place; all of it—

is now worth it.