Ascension
by Father David, May 21, 2009
Greetings and peace!
Know that you are held in prayer this day, please remember your Pastor and our community throughout this Easter season!
Today, forty days after Easter day, the author of the Gospel according to Luke and the Acts of the Apostles gives us the traditional setting of the Ascension of Jesus. Different from both the scenario described in Mark and John’s Gospel accounts, this 40 day marker leaves the apostles in a holding pattern for the next 10 days.
In the ancient Church, as the Gospel was concluded, the paschal candle would be extinguished, marking the physical departure of Jesus from the midst of those earliest believers. Standing alone again, their Lord and Teacher ascended to the skies, the Apostles are left one final question from the angels that appear in their midst. “What are you doing here, looking at the skies?”
Get on with it.
As an early Church tries to communicate to it’s members what it is that happened on the morning after the Author of Life entered into Death, the Easter narratives differ greatly in their time line, their images of the Risen One and their inclusion (or exclusion) of who was truly to take leadership in Jesus’ absence. But on this one point, the speak a single message; the resurrection of Christ is for all people, for all times.
In early February, Jeffrey Hawks brought something to my attention that he had found online…a sort of litany of the resurrection. The Pastor of the Community Church of Wilmette, a suburb of Chicago had preached this in an Easter sermon last year and it has stuck with me.
I spoke with Pastor Tripp Hudgon and got his permission to use this in the morning Communion service we will celebrate on Sunday. I leave you with this final Easter moment as we prepare to welcome the Spirit again into our lives at Pentecost next weekend.
Resurrection is liberation for the oppressed.
Resurrection is the end to injustice.
Resurrection is liberation from cruel poverty.
Resurrection is liberation from cruel affluence.
Resurrection speaks truth to power.
Resurrection is in solidarity with the powerless.
Resurrection asks for mercy where we might want vengeance.
Resurrection proclaims violence to be a lie.
Resurrection is the addict making amends, listing wrongs, and begging forgiveness.
Resurrection is impractical, impolite, and confusing.
Resurrection is admitting our mistakes,
and the role they played in the injustices we have experienced.
Resurrection is apologizing to our children, our spouses, and our friends.
Resurrection is the end to isolation…to segregation, to all that would bind us,
enslave us, imprison us, and keep us from God’s fire-y, world creating Love.
Resurrection is the liberation of the entire world.
And there is no end to Christ’s Resurrection.
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