Sunday, June 1, 2014

Reflection on Ascension

Last Thursday was Ascension Day   the fortieth day after Easter when Jesus ascended into heaven. Next Sunday the Church will celebrate the giving of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday. As I reflect on the themes and scripture readings assigned for this week from the one year lectionary, I'm astounded at the beauty of it.

The Collect (prayer) for today, this Sunday after Ascension, is as follows: 

“O God, the King of glory, who hast exalted thine only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph unto thy kingdom in heaven; We beseech thee, leave us not comfortless; but send to us thine Holy Ghost to comfort us, and exalt us unto the same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.”
We can learn three things from this collect. First, God exalts Christ into the kingdom of heaven. Second, Because Christ has been exalted into heaven, he has promised to send us the comforter. Third, By the work of the Holy Spirit we too are exalted. Jesus is our head and the body, the Church, must go where the head goes.

How is Jesus exalted unto the kingdom in heaven? In the gospel lesson taken from today’s morning prayer office we read John 17. In this text we find Jesus praying for himself and his disciples

“These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.”
Jesus prays this right before he is about to go to the cross to suffer greatly. God exalted Jesus into the Kingdom of heaven through the suffering of the cross and through Christ’s triumphant resurrection three days later. This is important to grasp. Jesus had to pass through the suffering of the cross before he could be exalted into heaven. It is in suffering that he is glorified and exalted.

The Church, following in our Lord’s example, is to be unified with the Father and the Son by sharing in this suffering. Remember the words of Paul in Romans 8:17, “and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.” Christ suffered and was glorified; we who are in Christ share in his sufferings and are glorified as well. When God calls us to Himself, He calls us to die that we might be resurrected in Christ.

The second thing we learn from the Collect is Jesus has promised to send us the Holy Spirit, the great comforter. John 15 teaches that the Holy Spirit does two things. Verse 26: “When the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me.” Understand, the Holy Spirit does not come to deliver a new gospel or new revelation 
 that’s called heresy. He comes to testify of Jesus, the Son of God who saves the world through his atoning work on the cross. If anyone ever comes claiming to have a new word from the Holy Spirit, and his word does not line up with what we know about the person and work of Jesus, that message is not from the Holy Spirit.

Now, we too having the same Holy Spirit testify of the work of Christ. Again, John 15, “And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.” We bear witness for Christ for one purpose: that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. This is how and why the Holy Spirit works in our lives — to bring glory to Jesus.

The third thing the collect teaches is by the Holy Spirit we are exalted into the same place where Jesus Christ our savior resides, that is, the heavenly kingdom. Wherever the Head goes the Body must go with it.

The Psalter lesson for this morning is taken from Psalm 24. This Psalm poses an interesting question: Verse 3, “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may be found in His holy place?” David then gives the answer in verse 5: "those who have clean hands and a pure heart.” A pure heart means single-mindedness as opposed to double-mindedness. James 1:8 warns that a “double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.”

One of the greatest examples of single-minded devotion to God I can think of is Mary, the mother of Jesus. She is the theotokos, “God-bearer.” She is the great Virgin who carried God in her womb. Our culture mocks her virginity as it mocks all those who choose to wait for marriage. They despise the idea that the sexual union between a man and woman is to be celebrated within marriage. Mary is the great example of single-minded devotion to God in the discipline of chastity. She has the pure heart that God desires in his followers. However, as devoted as she was  in her single-mindedness to God, even she needed a savior. Hear her own words from the Magnificat: “My soul doth magnify the Lord : and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.” Even Mary knew that she needed a savior and could not ascend God's holy mountain in her own strength.

When we rightly judge our own sin, as Mary did, we quickly realize that nobody on earth is qualified to ascend the hill of the Lord. Nobody may meet with God in his holy place. The only human ever worthy to ascend God's holy mountain is Jesus, the sinless Lamb. We are united to him through baptism, and become one with him by faith through the Holy Spirit. We join our hearts with Him and with each other by partaking of His flesh and blood in the Eucharist every Sunday. It is under the blood of Jesus that we too may ascend the hill of the Lord.

The liturgy prepares us to ascend the hill and sup with Christ. Liturgy is much more that just ritualistic smells and bells. In describing liturgy, Alexander Schmemann writes it is an “action by which a group of people become something corporately which they had not been as a mere collection of individuals — a whole greater than the sum of its parts.” When we gather together on Sunday morning in worship, Jesus' own body is reunited in a special way. Certainly, God is with us in our individual praise and prayers throughout the week, but He promises to be uniquely present with us when we gather together as his body: “When two or three are gathered there I am in the midst of them.”

In the Anglican tradition we enter with the processional cross singing hymns of praise as we begin our ascension up the mountain. We do this to remind ourselves that it’s not of our own works that we meet with God but by the works of Jesus Christ, which the Holy Spirit has come to testify to! That’s why we begin our journey under the shadow of the cross. 

God’s ordained minister then rehearses the law given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. We appropriately respond with “Lord have mercy upon us, Christ have mercy upon us, Lord have mercy upon us.” We need His mercy in our lives because we are never holy enough to fulfill His law.

God then teaches us through His word read in the Psalms, Old Testament, Epistle, and Gospel readings. I love the tradition in the Anglican church where the minister walks forward and reads the gospel lesson while in the midst of his parishioners. This is to remind us that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The gospel is proclaimed unto all nations.

After the lessons are read it is appropriate to unite our minds and establish pure hearts before God by reciting the Ancient creeds of Christendom — either the Nicene or Apostle's Creed. These creeds unite the Church in common belief and defend against false doctrine.

Before we reach the top of the mountain we must confess our sins. We’re about to enter into the kingdom of heaven, and we want to wipe our feet at the door. In corporate confession we not only confess our own individual sins but also the sins of our brothers and sisters. A fellow Christian may confess something of which he is not guilty, but I may be. In confession we bear one another’s burdens.

Having begun our journey up the hill of the Lord under the shadow of the cross, having been consecrated by God's word, having been brought to a single-mindedness by a common creedal faith, and having had our sins absolved, God now invites us into heaven. “Lift up your hearts” announces the priest. “We lift them up unto the Lord,” we respond. Our exaltation by the Holy Spirit culminates with our ascension into the heavenly throne room just as Christ’s exaltation culminated in His ascension. Remember, Christ being our head is in heaven. We being His Body are here on earth; yet, we join Him in heaven. Since we’re in heaven we join our hearts with the worship that the angels sing around the throne of God, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty. Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

We have finally come to the final stage of our exaltation: the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. This sacrament, where Jesus gives us Himself to eat, is the crescendo of this whole journey. Marriage between husband and wife is an earthly shadow of the heavenly reality of the marriage between Christ and his Church. The Eucharist reflects the conjugal act of that relationship. As a husband and wife physically connect, God physically unites Himself to us through bread and wine. He commands us to eat his body and drink his blood, which offers eternal life. This is why it’s so important for all believers to take the Lord's Supper. This is all apart of our exaltation. Therefore, we can approach the throne boldly because we are in Jesus Christ and have the Holy Spirit living and active in our lives.

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