ASCENSION IN THE SUNSHINE

Thursday 18th May, the 40th day after Easter, and the sun shone for Ascension Day. The choir gathered atop the tower and were briefly joined by Mike Dudgeon who took our lovely front cover photo – a picture that shows some of the All Saints congregation gathered below to celebrate Christ’s Ascension into heaven. This sermon from Rev’d Penny is the perfect expression of the importance of the day:

Do you remember when heaven opened, in the beginning, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in bodily form like a dove and a voice came from above saying you are my Son, the beloved: with you I am well pleased?

And do you remember later, when the cloud came down, on the mountain top, and the terrified Peter, John and James heard words like that again, telling them to listen to Jesus? Do you remember…... do you remember, too, how often he had to help them understand that he would not leave them bereft?

If he had not ascended to heaven, in the way that Mark, and Acts, and Luke describe, the resurrected Jesus would have aged with the disciples, and remained bound by time, as we are. So the withdrawal isn’t just a neat way of rounding off the story of a life and death, but an essential means of leaving the ending open. Of assuring us that our prayers are heard in another realm; and that if we listen to the Word carefully, we will learn to live differently. Not in fear of being abandoned, but with courage and hope for ourselves and others

That invisible thread

When Christ is taken up, he takes his experience of being human back to God and blesses his friends as he leaves them. They will no longer be able to see him in the flesh, and touch his wounds, so that they might be healed, but will be given a new means of communicating with him: through the Holy Spirit That invisible thread that holds everything together. That helps us see past, present and future through God’s eyes That pulls us up to where Christ is and draws Christ down to where we are

When Jesus was carried up to heaven, the disciples didn’t weep and wail As Luke tells the story, they returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and headed straight to the temple, to bless God by praising him for all he had done. They did not know at that stage what would happen next but were content to wait, because they knew they could trust what Jesus had told them He had never broken any promise but had instead broken down the idea that God doesn’t care about the ups and downs of human experience. He cared so much that he chose to identify with the broken and downhearted, rather than with those who already had it all. And he cared enough, to bear the weight of the cross that was theirs as well as his When he ascends, he takes that experience with him. To tell the Father about those he has left behind, in that cloud of unknowing: that cloud which comes down, when we are in stasis; suspended between what has led to the place where we are now and the place to which God is leading us.

The virtue of patience

The disciples had to wait – as we do usually – because patience was a virtue they needed to learn. If the Holy Spirit had come down at precisely the same time as Jesus had gone up, there would have been no time to think, and talk, and pray No time to long for his grace No time to remember, in the way that Jesus had urged them to do So, the ten days between the Ascension and Pentecost was a time for looking back, and counting blessings, and making themselves ready for whatever lay ahead A time for being open to all sorts of possibilities, and a time for remembering that with God nothing is impossible