The most difficult part of Christian life
The Ascension of the Lord (Sunday 24 May)
This Sunday is the Feast of the Ascension, when Jesus leaves this world. It is a transitional moment in the Easter season. Pentecost is coming next Sunday. There is a time in between Jesus’ leaving and the coming of the Holy Spirit to the disciples.
Jesus could have stayed, could have continued to appear to Christians for years, for centuries, until now. But he leaves, and weans the disciples off his presence. However, disappearance is not the same as absence. We believe that Our Risen Lord is present in many modes, including as St Paul says ‘…the Church which is His Body’. This is especially true today.
A powerful message
It reminds us that Jesus, the human incarnation of God on earth, was limited to a specific time and place in history. Yet Jesus ensured his message and ministry would continue. Knowing that the disciples would need time to grieve, Jesus promised the Spirit would come upon them. The visiting of the Spirit upon the disciples at Pentecost was the motivation to set about doing what Jesus had charged them to do. Without the Ascension, there is no Pentecost.
That is why the figures in white rebuke the disciples: ‘Why do you stand looking into Heaven?’ The disciples were readying themselves to be the Spirit-filled body of Jesus Christ in their own time and place. As we do.
We might pause for a moment to stop staring into Heaven, to ready ourselves to receive the Holy Spirit as at Pentecost in order to be ‘The Church which is His Body.’
Something to think about…
When I was young I was pretty sure I knew what love meant. I watched movies, I read books and as a young person I had experienced the love of my family and friends. However, the older I get, the more I wonder whether I – or for that matter anyone else – really has a sense of what that overused word, love, really means.
In light of this, I would like to comment on Jesus’ most important commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you” John 13:34. Too often, we hear these words and only half listen. But this quote holds the most important challenge of the whole Gospel; the most difficult part of life as a Christian. Why? Because loving others the way that our God loves us is a difficult task.
It is easy to consider ourselves as loving if we only look at how we get on with people who are loving, warm, respectful and good to us. It’s easy to think we are loving and that we are measuring up to Jesus’ commandment to love as he did. But if we look at the other side of ourselves, our confidence can quickly disappear. What about the people we don’t get along with, whom we don’t like? What about the people whom we avoid, and who avoid us? What about the people who have hurt us, embarrassed, betrayed, or belittled us? What about those people whom we haven’t been able to forgive?
It’s one thing to love someone who admires you; it’s quite another thing to love someone who wants you gone! But that is the real test. It’s the challenge Jesus sets us as Christians: “Love one another”. That is the constant struggle in our lives.
The good news is, we have help and we have hope. Let’s not forget the other half of Jesus’ sentence “as I have loved you!”
It is with this love that we can understand what we are being called to do in the world as Easter people.
