Ascension

Thursday, May 21, 2009 -- Week of 6 Easter, Year One
Ascension Day

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 962)
Psalms 8, 47 (morning) 24, 96 (evening)
Ezekiel 1:1-14, 24-28b
Hebrews 2:5-18
Matthew 28:16-20

The resurrection appearances in the gospels sound so objective and real. In one Jesus invites Thomas to touch his wounds. In another Jesus eats breakfast with Peter. In this story from Matthew Jesus meets the disciples at an appointed place, the mountain in Galilee to which Jesus had directed them. There the crucified one appears to the eleven disciples. This is the intimate band of those who had been closest to him. They have had the privilege of truly knowing him and sharing in his ministry. Now the resurrected One appears to them in a group as he had promised.

Then we read: "When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted." But some doubted! When you read a story like this, what's to doubt? But apparently whatever the nature of the appearance, it had some aspect of ambiguity about it. Even among the eleven there was doubt.

Ascension Day marks a turning point in the apostolic experience. From this point not long after his resurrection, Jesus no longer appeared bodily to his disciples. They knew him to be taken away from them. Yet not long after that experience of absence, the disciples experienced an even more convincing sense of presence. With the coming of the Holy Spirit, they knew the presence of God in Christ in a way that transcends all sense of material limits of space and time.

The disciples became convinced that Jesus' absence from the particular place meant his universal presence. Though he was absent in body, they knew his presence in spirit. And they insisted on a continuity between the human being and friend that they had lived with so closely, and the suffering servant who had died such a painful death, and the risen one who had appeared to them after his death, and the Holy Spirit which filled their lives and energized everything. They insisted it was all the same. It was all Jesus.

But some doubted. Doubt is always a part of faith. Regardless of the level of doubt, from everything we know about those disciples, they trusted. They trusted Jesus and lived out of the memory and spirit of what he had taught them and meant to them. When they condensed their trust to its simplest form, they used the word love. They trusted love. They loved.

To live in this new Holy Spirit which was the energy of the human being they had known as Jesus -- who died, arose and ascended -- is to walk in love as he loved us. They summarized his commandments into the new commandment to love. The described the experience of living in communion with him as living in love and being enveloped in the very life of God -- God in Christ and Christ in us, a living union of divine and human embracing all.

The separation and alienation each of us feels within ourselves is healed and elevated by love. The separation and alienation we feel within the human family is healed and united by love. The separation and alienation we feel with God is overcome and healed by love. The love of Jesus, experienced in a singular, concrete human life, has been raised from the particularity of space and time and now fills creation. All is healed. We are one, with ourselves, our neighbor, and with the mysterious and infinite God.

But still there is doubt. Sure. Yet we put our trust in love, and we seem to see God too.

Lowell

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About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas