Ascension Tide is one of the shortest of Church’s liturgical seasons, lasting only ten days. Forty days after Easter, Christ has ascended to the Father. Ten days later, He sends the Holy Spirit into the Apostolic Church at Pentecost, or Whitsunday. In these few days, we are called to examine the significance and meaning of the Ascension for us.
         
By His Ascension, Jesus Christ has restored redeemed humanity to God the Father. Every part of our fallen human nature has been healed and glorified in Him and now sits at God’s right hand to draw us upward. Heaven is now our true home. From there, Christ intercedes for us and prays the Father that we might freely will to go where He has gone.
         
On Ascension Day, we glimpsed the sovereignty of Christ manifested gloriously in His return to the Father. He returns to Heaven as its Lord, having subdued the earth, reclaimed it for God, and redeemed those who believe in Him. His Ascension seals the fate of the universe. Christ, who humbled Himself to redeem mankind and creation, now asserts His rule from Heaven until His coming again, to judge both the quick and the dead.

The extent to which His followers can convert the nations depends upon His continued rule of their hearts and souls. Without the rule of Christ within us, His most holy Incarnation would be left without witness and success. As Paul Claudel writes,

Jesus Christ, the Man-God, highest expression of creation, rises from the depths of matter where the Word was born by uniting with woman’s obedience, toward that throne which was predestined for Him at the right hand of the Father. From this place He continues to exercise his magnetic power on all creatures; all feel deep within them that summons, that injunction, to ascend. (I Believe…159)
 
All creatures have always felt something of this magnetic power of Christ, the Logos, the Wisdom of God that perfects all things in an imperfect world. The apple tree grows and bears fruit following laws written upon it by God. Farm animals provide nourishment and reproduce, continuing the cycle of life. Even fallen man, at the very least, reproduces and lives on in his children. All creation follows the Lordship of Christ by laws inscribed in its nature.

Yet for man, there is more to be discovered in the magnetic power of Christ. For restless souls, seekers, and explorers, the magnetic power of Christ satisfies the deepest longing for union with God and eternal happiness. St. Peter says this morning that the end of all things is at hand. (1 St. Peter, iv. 7) Something more decisive and lasting has been accomplished and finished in the life of Christ. Man’s alienation from God has been overcome, sin has been conquered, death has taken on new meaning, and Satan has been put in his place. Repair, redemption, and salvation have now become real possibilities through God’s Grace. The human life of Christ is offered to all men as the way home to Heaven. For those who follow Christ, there is a summons and call to ascend with Christ in heart and mind, and with Him to continually dwell.

But, as St. Peter reminds us, Ascension for Christians means more than gazing up into the Heavens. It is a call to be born again inwardly and spiritually as the Ascended Christ reigns in our souls. St. Peter insists that we must be sober and watching unto prayer. (idem) If the magnetic power of the Ascended Christ is to be effectual in our lives, we must submit spiritually to His sovereignty. As Bishop Westcott writes, Christ is not only present with us as Ascended: He is active for us. (Sermons…) Beneath the surface of life in the body, we are called to embrace His action, which intends to make us into something beautiful and true.

So, we must set our hearts on things above and not things of the earth. (Col. iii. 2) With Paul Claudel, we must confess that the time has come for us to take our flight, body and soul, toward our Higher Cause. (I Believe, 160) In Christ, the higher cause and greater meaning of life is to be found. If we have our conversation with Him in Heaven, to love His appearing, we shall be dissolved into His love. (Jenks, 352) As we ask Him to begin to reign and rule as King Supreme from the thrones of our hearts, He will draw us up from the poor perishing enjoyments here below to the glorious and eternal gifts above.

Today, Christ promises us that from His Ascended Glory, He will send the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth. (St. John, xv. 26) The Spirit will testify to Christ’s salvific power, establish His magnetic power as the source of our redemption, and effect our transformation. But the Spirit will also protect us amidst the world’s hostility.  

They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me. (St. John xvi. 2,3)
 
While we may suffer in the body, the Spirit will protect or souls.
        
The Ascended Christ pleads our cause at God’s right hand. To live in this eternal security, we must allow Christ’s character to rule and govern our souls. Bishop Westcott said long ago, heaven is first a temper and then a place. May Christ’s temper reign in us, enabling us to live above ourselves and walk in Heaven’s ways. For when the Holy Ghost comes to us, we pray that He finds our hearts and minds already conformed to the Ascended Christ and longing to share His Grace with others.

This week, as we prepare for Pentecost, where in your daily life is Christ calling you to set your hearts on things above and not on things of the earth (Col. iii. 2)? May we allow the Ascended Lord to draw us upward in heart and mind so that when the Holy Spirit descends, He finds us ready.
 
Amen.
©wjsmartin

 
Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that since we do believe
thy only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to have ascendended
into the heavens; so we may also in heart and mind thither ascend,
and with Him continually dwell,
who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost,
one God, world without end. Amen. (Collect, Ascension Day)
 
        
Today we celebrate the Ascension of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The imagery is, of course, that of rising up and returning to God the Father. Christians believe that Christ that the Word, the Logos, having been made flesh, made man, now glorified returns to the Father. What has come from God, for us men and for our salvation, now unites Himself with the source of our redemption and salvation. Thus, today, we must study Christ’s return to God, His call for us to follow Him, and the character of soul that is necessary for the journey.
        
Christ’s return to God is the reconciliation of His person with the Godhead. His person, in time and space, was, of course, human, and so with Christ’s ascension we celebrate the return of glorified man to the Father. What this means is that man’s nature has been redeemed, repaired, and restored in Jesus Christ. What God the Father did for us in time and space, in the humanity of Jesus, is now sealed in Heaven. Being made complete, man is once again made whole and one with the Creator. And this healthy restoration means that man has a future in the presence of God the Father forever, not limited to the conditions of the creation, but with the Creator in Heaven. That the Ascension, in literal terms, is the God/Man’s reconciliation with Heaven, gives our minds an image of Christ’s return to what is above, superior, greater, better, and most perfect. The outward and visible Ascension of Christ draws our minds into a victory that not only transcends sin, rises above sin and death, but rises above the created humanity to return it to Divinity.  
        
But the significance of the Ascension is found in Christ’s intention for us. His Ascension is not the record of a selfish Son of God reclaiming the Divine Nature He set aside for a time to save us. Christ intends for us to follow Him. The Nature of God is that perfect love that longs eternally for his creatures to be one with Himself, through knowledge and love. Christ Himself had promised the Apostles and Disciples that His most holy Incarnation, His being made man, was for the express purpose of sharing the benefits of His life and death with those who would believe and follow Him. Having been crucified by man’s sin, Christ returned in Easter Resurrection to explain His victory over sin, death, and Satan. Rather than expecting his followers to honor a dead hero, Christ invited his followers to enter into the new life whose proper inspiration and end is Heaven. Christ

shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God: and, being assembled together with them, commanded them tshat they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me.

The Apostles were eyewitnesses of Christ’s Resurrection from the dead. To them, Christ promised the impartation of the Holy Ghost, that they might share in His risen life. To ensure that they might partake of the merits and blessings of His Resurrection, Christ would have to leave them. In His heart he holds all believers. In his heart he carries us into Heaven.  From Heaven, Christ’s Incarnation would expand and grow in the hearts of all men who would believe and allow His union with God to change, transform, and perfect their lives for a future with Him in the Kingdom. Christ was then calling them, and men in all ages, to prepare for the coming of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost. He was inviting them in heart and mind to thither ascend and with Him continually dwell, to follow Him in His Ascension back to the Father. By ascending back to the Father, as St. Leo reminds us, Christ was not abandoning us but providing us with a more universal and sacramental presence. (De Resurr. Sermon II). In His Ascension, Christ is no longer insisting upon His physical presence in time and space for comfort, relief, and happiness. Rather, in His Ascension, Christ now will be present to us inwardly and spiritually, in heart and mind, in as many places as there are believers in the world. Rather than limiting Himself to ancient Palestine, two thousand years ago, now Christ promises to be present to all believers in all places until His coming again. But what is key, is that He will be present only in hearts and minds that thither ascend, rise up and into the presence of His union with our Father in Heaven. With willing desire and strong belief, you and I are invited to ascend into the presence of God the Father, through Jesus Christ our Lord, by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. Again with St. Leo, Christ ascended that faith might be more excellent and stronger, sight gave way to doctrine, the authority of which was to be accepted by believing hearts enlightened with rays from above. (idem)
        
Today, our Collect reminds us that the end of the Ascension is that we should with Him continually dwell. It is true enough that Christ ascends into the cloud, beyond or sight and comprehension. But if we remember that He holds us in His heart, He sees us still, within Himself, to be made one with the Father. The Ascension reveals to us that we are His and that He reigns supreme and sovereign over all believers. In and through Christ, if we believe, we can ascend in Him over all barriers and obstacles to Heaven. To embrace this truth practically, our everyday lives become occasions for surrender to His rule. Christ’s Ascension in heart and mind is not merely for monks and mystics. As we rear our children, we ought to pray for Christ’s loving guidance. As we work at or various occupations, we can plead for Christ’s wisdom. As we struggle to die to sin, we plead Christ’s power to gain the victory. When we believe and surrender in these ordinary moments, the ascended Christ will respond.

In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. (St. Mark xvi, 17, 18)
 
But all of this, only if we continually dwell with Christ. His Grace shall enable us to slay all our devils, speak with new tongues about His wisdom, power, and love alive in us, destroy the attacks of any serpentine generation of vipers, devitalize deadly poison, and heal the infirm.
        
My friends, Ascension Day exhorts us to ascend and dwell with Christ who pleads our cause at the right hand of the Father. St. Paul asks, If God be for us, who can be against us? (Romans viii. 31) In Christ, we find the love of God made flesh that subdues all sin if we would participate in His power. The character we seek to imitate and put on is Christ’s. If we continually dwell with Christ, He will repair and redeem us for salvation and ultimate union with the Father. If we ask Him for His help, follow His counsel, and submit to His lordship, we shall overcome earth’s seeming alienation from Heaven. And then, also with St. Paul, we shall believe and know that
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (ibid, 38, 39)
 
Amen.
©wjsmartin
        
        

 
These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might
have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation but be of good cheer;
 I have overcome the world.
 (St. John xvi. 33) 
 
Today, we find ourselves on the Fifth and final Sunday of the Easter Season. Today is called Rogation Sunday because our English word is derived from the Latin word rogare, which means to petition, ask, or supplicate. The tradition of Rogation Sunday hails from the 4th century and was standardized in the Latin Church by Pope Gregory in the 6th century. It was originally a Roman festival called Robigalia, which comes from robigo – meaning wheat rust, a grain disease, from which pious pagan farmers prayed for deliverance. What was for pagans a day devoted to petitioning the false gods for help against threats to the harvest, was taken up and used by the Church as a day for appealing to the one true God, the source of spiritual growth.

In Medieval England, this took on a practical form. The priest would lead his people out of the church, through the fields, and around the parish boundaries in a solemn procession. They carried the cross and banners, sang the Litany, and prayed for God’s blessing on the crops, asking Him to protect the wheat and barley from disease, drought, and storms so that there might be a plentiful harvest.
 
This Rogation theme flows directly from today’s Gospel. Jesus tells His disciples: Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, He will give it you. (St. John xvi. 23) As His forty days of Resurrection come to a close, and His Ascension approaches, Jesus prepares His followers for a new way of being with Him. No longer will He be present with them in the flesh. Instead, He will be with them through the Holy Spirit. The whole purpose of the Incarnation was to restore human nature, reconcile it to God, and to reopen the way to Heaven.

Jesus continues: Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. (Ibid, 24) What is this joy? Christian joy descends from Heaven in Jesus Christ, redeems human nature in Him, and lifts our lives back to the Father. In Christ we discover who we truly are, creatures made to live in joyful union with God.  Neither sin, death, nor Satan could break Christ’s perfect union with the Father, and He desires to share that same unbreakable union with us.

Christ is moved and defined by the Father through the Holy Spirit for our salvation and joy. True joy is not found in bodily health, temporal happiness, or earthly success, all uncertain and impermanent. True joy is found only in union with the Father, through Jesus the Son, by the presence of the Holy Spirit. To become true sons of the Father who are made to do His will, we must be born inwardly anew through Heaven’s power, wisdom, and love.
This coming Thursday, Christ ascends back to the Father. To share in His joy, we must follow Him in spirit and in truth so that where He is, there we might be also. (St. John xiv. 3) Yet Christ’s Ascension profits us little unless we ask the Father for the Grace to live in Him under the Holy Spirit’s rule. Salvation and joy are not ours by natural right but come by Grace and by choice.

In stillness and quiet, we must study the life of Christ to discern where He came from, what moved Him to live and die for us, and to where He has returned. Everything that Christ did flowed from the Father’s will. I came forth from the Father. (Ibid, 28) That is why He must now leave us in the flesh, to send the Holy Spirit and establish a new spiritual way in our hearts. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. (1 St. John ii. 15) The Apostles had to release Christ in order to receive Him in the Spirit. ‘Ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.’ (St. John xv. 19) Jesus chooses us out of the world and desires to bring us back with Him to Heaven.
Christ has overcome sin, death, and Satan –the world– through the Holy Spirit. If we would share in His victory, we too must be moved and defined by the same Spirit. ‘If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you.’ (St. John xvi. 7)      

Therefore, we must not only hear [God’s Word] but be doers of it. (St. James i. 22) If we only hear but do not live it, we quickly forget who we are and what we are made for. Only by living the Word can we enter the perfect joy for which we were created. Living the Word sets us free and gives us true spiritual liberty. As the Collect for this Rogation Sunday prays: O Lord, from whom all good things do come: Grant to us thy humble servants, that by thy holy inspiration we may think those things that be good, and by thy merciful guiding may perform the same. (Collect: Rogation Sunday) The liberty that leads to eternal joy begins in the mind. By the Holy Spirit, we must ask for the Grace both to think what is good and, by God’s merciful guidance, to put it into action.
Practically, this means that we must be conscientious askers. Every day this week, let us pray the Rogation Collect slowly and then list before God one area of our lives where we need His holy inspiration and merciful guiding. Let us choose one thing that we might do differently, one act of obeying God more fully, one person whom we must forgive, one moment of self-sacrifice, and ask the Holy Spirit to give us the freedom to do it.

As we contemplate the glorified Christ, we see God’s perfect model for human life. We ask the Father to form the same goodness in us so that we might be kept unspotted by the world (St. James, i. 27) and overcome the world through faith. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. (1 John 5:4)
By believing in Jesus Christ and receiving His Holy Spirit, we can become overcomers. In Christ, through faith, we can overcome the world and all its sorrows –seeking not earthly rewards, but the strength and perseverance to defeat our sin and live for God. In this way we may at last attain the joy for which we were created, the joy that Christ has purchased for us forever.
Amen.
©wjsmartin

 
Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away:
for if I go not away,
the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.
St. John xvi. 7
 
         It will be forever and always the case that the greater benefit of Christ’s mystical presence is a challenge to earthly-minded men. Earthly-minded men are captive to the flesh. Given this, they rely too much on human interactions rather than the Holy Spirit. They are like the proverbial Mary Magdalene, who, once Christ is risen from the dead, reaches out to touch Him. That Christ rebukes her is a warning to us all. The Resurrected Christ is on the move back to Heaven. And the Heaven He enters in His Ascension, is the Heaven that must move and define our lives on earth.
        
Of course, life in and through the Holy Spirit, rather than life with and present to the tangible Christ, is no easy business. We are earthly-minded because our souls inhabit bodies. Most of our commerce and converse is in time and space with other men and women. The flesh consumes us because this is what we are most used to. But our Lord would have it otherwise. He intends for us to be one with Him in and through the Holy Spirit. He fully insists upon a new kind of living that finds protection by His Grace and reliance upon His promised mercy. And why should it be otherwise? We have come from Heaven, are made to return to Heaven, and should be practicing His presence if we hope to be saved.
        
Christ’s logic is, of course, correct. Who amongst us can truly say that this life is perfectly fulfilling, always joyous, and bereft of any temptation to sadness and despair? Our most cherished relations are often disappointing. Family members confound and confuse us. Friends let us down. Enemies seem insistent on meddling and causing us grief. No, this world is no heaven, and we ought not to expect it to be. Any life on this side of heaven is bound to be full of joy struggling with woe, hope tempered by disappointment, and love threatened by unfaithfulness. This world, a world endured by our Blessed Saviour Himself, shows us how fickle mortal men can be. Our dogs and cats might be faithful, but don’t put too much trust in our fellow me.
        
Thus, Christ today seeks to root and ground us in a greater form of relationship and religion. As our Collect warns us, Christ comes to order our unruly wills and sinful affections. Our wills or best intentions are always thrown off course and challenged by sinful desires and expectations. What is key for all believers is the unshakable and constant intention of God to heal and redeem us if we accept His Grace. What is most important at the end of the day is our relationship with Him. And what this means is that we must be involved in Christ’s personalism, that promise of intimate friendship which is necessary if we hope to reach Heaven’s embrace. Given such, our first order of business is to love His commandments and set our hearts on His promises so that in the face of the sundry and manifold changes of this world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found. (Collect Easter IV)
        
So, in this Easter Tide, you and I are called to treasure and cherish Christ’s gift to us, the gift of His plentiful life, His loving death, and the meaning of His resurrection. What is most important is the meaning of it all for us, as we acclimate ourselves to His will and way. Christ has come down from Heaven to save us. Every good gift and every perfect gift cometh down from above…from the Father of lights, (St. James i. 17) as St. James reminds us this morning. Far from being able to save ourselves and find perfect happiness, we rather rely on God for this work, a work He perfects in His Son. God’s gift in His Son knows neither variableness nor shadow of turning. Christ came down from Heaven with one fixed and unalterable purpose, to save us and reconcile us to our Heavenly Father. His ultimate purpose was to transform us by the same Son, His Word, the meaning and principle of all existence. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. (ibid, 18) In the Incarnation of His Son, God intends to rebirth us from above so that as His Grace offers us redemption in the offering of Jesus, we might accept the offer and find new life moved by truth otherwise beyond our reach. And for this reason, as those who follow Christ and become His friends, our first order of business is contemplation. You and I are called to contemplate and study the life of Christ, begin to learn its significance for us, and embrace it inwardly and spiritually as the food of our salvation. Thus, we must be listening to Christ, quick to hear, with our mouths shut, slow to speak, resisting all frustration and eagerness to take offence, slow to wrath. (ibid, 19) What threatens to defile and dirty us, we must reject. Ill will has no place in the lives of those whose chief business is the imitation of Christ. We must rather receive with meekness the engrafted Word, which brings salvation to our souls. (ibid, 21)
        
And as Christ reminds us in today’s Gospel, our minds should be fixed on true joy and against earthly sorrow. Our establishment in Christ will depend upon Christ’s going away so that the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, might come to us. Earthly sorrow at Christ’s departure treats His action like a tragic end and not an exciting new beginning. But Christ would have it otherwise. Christ’s new beginning for us involves far greater joy. When the Holy Ghost comes to us, we realize that Christ, who was with His disciples in one place and at one time, might now be available to all peoples in all times. When the Holy Ghost comes, Christ will convince the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. (idem, 8) This same Comforter is the One who meets us powerfully in the very midst of our earthly challenges. When family members wound us or when friends betray us, the Holy Ghost will not remove the pain and suffering by any magic. Rather, He will enter into it. He is the one, who in our darkest hours, enables us to pray Abba Father. His strength enables a betrayed spouse to respond with forgiveness, to pray rather than react to a child who abandons the faith, and to armor the believer with courage against a mocking crowd full of malice.
The Holy Ghost’s comfort doesn’t deny our sorrow but transforms it. He convicts us of our sin, but we need not despair. He provides Christ’s righteousness when our own is too weak. He reminds us of His judgment of the Devil so that we do not fear the machinations of malicious men. In sum, the Comforter gives us the goodness of God to persevere in an imperfect marriage and to resist the onslaught of depression and seeming despair. He won’t take us out of bad experiences, but He will change our view and understanding of them. Rather than needing to clutch onto a merely earthly Christ, we shall rely on who and what Christ is in God the Father and by the Spirit. Clinging to Christ’s Spirit, we shall find increasing power to persevere, forgive, and even rejoice against sorrow in difficult times. Thence comes our joy, which no man can take from us. (idem, 22)
 
Amen.
©wjsmartin