Readings: Acts
1:1-11, John 17:20-26
We pray: Gracious
God, we pray for a discerning heart and an enquiring mind as we hear your word
for us today. May all that we bring and
all that we hear be gathered into your purpose for us. In Jesus name. Amen.
Here, in this
church today, we are surrounded by the imagination of others, and we thank God
for the skill in bringing that into a medium where we can share in their
imagining. As always this art exhibition
is an inspiring part of our rhythm of being church. It also reminds me of something we did in our
church in Amberley – a kids dream really – let alone the fun it was for the
adults of which I was one. We have a
building – new actually – for the youth and children – and we had this group
called Kid’s Club which was ecumenical – and we took a whole wall and said –
lets create the stories of the bible on this wall. So through paint and various other techniques
we let our imaginations go for it. If I
remember rightly we had an Elvis hanging out with Jonah and sparkles on the
dove and a myriad of creatures in the sea.
So much fun. We talked about and
never did get to the idea of painting the ceiling with the imaginations of
heaven. But I know that the first things
that the children said they would do was their pets that had died – with them
alive and jumping around and having a great time.
Interesting how we
imagine the concept of heaven, what pictures it encourages in our minds. In the days of the biblical writers heaven
was a product of their world view – somewhere up there because earth was the
centre of the known universe and all things rotated around it. So it was conceivable that there was a place
above, a fixed spatial location, where God resided. Today our
understanding of the where we sit within the greater whole of the galaxy makes
that rather problematic and we have trouble with the concept of the risen
Christ being beamed up as they say to some suspended castle above the clouds. And so some simply avoid this part of the
story of Jesus – finding it easier to skip over, denying its relevance to the
Gospel story.
Yet the ascension
is absolutely relevant to our understanding of God and the relationship with
Jesus and the Holy Spirit and with us. We
mustn’t let the problematic imagery prevent us from exploring what is actually
a critical moment of our faith.
So, the ascension
is the ending of a forty day period of wonder that begins with the resurrection
appearance of Jesus. They are intimately
linked, resurrection and ascension, bookends around a period in which the risen
Christ was encountered by his followers in a variety of ways – ways that in
fact blew out of the water all that they had believed possible, that sowed the
ground for Pentecost, for the coming of the spirit.
Ways that expanded
their hopes and vision, that enabled them to live in the power of the spirit
through all the trials to come, that formed community and indeed the
church.
The distance
bridged in this moment of ascension is not to be measured in the number of miles
from earth to heaven but in the overwhelming experience of the depth, breadth,
height and length of the love of the triune God who will not leave us alone,
ever. Jesus who was sent to us from the
heart of God as active love, returns to the heart of God, and the active love
of God for the world continues in the coming of the Holy Spirit who will work
to transform creation until all things are gathered up, reconciled as one.
Ascension speaks
of a spectacular promise of enduring relationship, the three-in-one God who is also
and always with us.
The story of resurrection
and ascension speaks then of a wonder that will resonate through the church, one
that will strengthen and encourage the faithful throughout time. And when we look at the Gospel reading for
today we realise that Jesus recognised and anticipated the importance of the
moment of ascension for the church that was yet to come.
He saw that the wonder
of this moment of unification of the son with the father was pivotal to those
who are still to come – Jesus prayer in John’s Gospel for future believers
firmly connects the reconciliation of Creator and Son with the ongoing story of
the church – from those first disciples who were there through those tumultuous
times to us here in Opoho in the 21st century.
And so there is
the sense that we are part of a faith where God continues be present in the
world through the Spirit, where Christ lived and died for us, (not just those
who were there at a moment in time), and where the work of the church and the
faithfulness of its people is sourced always in the unity that is God Father
Son and Spirit, always with us.
It’s a thread of
reconciling love that stretches throughout the church, past, present and
future.
Jesus is keen that
the wonder of the moment, the certainty of whatever experience was had by those
early disciples, be there for us too.
Jesus wants us all to somehow share in that understanding of
reconciliation and God always with us – more than just in our heads or our
theology or our doctrine – but in our hearts.
There is a poem by
Tom Gordon[1]
I would like to share:
Remember me, when
by your side I stood
in silent
presence, there to wait for you.
Remember me, just
as you said you would
and in the
presence I’ll be there with you.
Remember me, when
by your side I walked
on steady
journeys, there to go with you.
Remember me,
recalling how we talked
and on each
journey I’ll be there with you.
Remember me, when
you would take my hand
in tender sharing,
to be joined with you.
Remember me,
reliving what we planned
and in the sharing
I’ll be there with you.
Remember me, when
time is hard to fill,
in lonely waiting,
no one there with you.
Remember me, when
bonds continue still.
In constant loving
I’ll be there with you,
Remember me, when
I’m beyond your sight,
in blinded seeing,
never there for you.
Remember me, and
see with inner eye.
Invisible no
longer, I’ll be there with you.
Remember me, when
you search the skies
in constant
wonder. Am I gone from you?
Remember me in all
your tears and sighs,
and hear my promise
– I’m still one with you.
I want to finish
as we began with imagery and imagination – How do we as the poet said, search
the skies in constant wonder, how do we remind ourselves of the forty days that
blew our minds, how do we recover a sense of the overwhelming love of God made
one with us through Christ and in the presence of the Spirit and go out in hope
and vision of a reconciling love for all?
I don’t know about you but for me – I might just need to go and lie on
some grass somewhere and check out those clouds – and remember that the story
of the ascension was for me too. Amen
Margaret Garland
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