The Sunday After Ascension
This Sunday in our yearly liturgical rhythm we are celebrating and remembering the Ascension. A difficult theme for many of us to embrace if we’ve been brought up with images of the risen Christ ascending to heaven borne on a white fluffy cloud, or even more fantastical, just the feet of Jesus poking out from beneath a cloud with the followers wistfully watching Christ disappear.
But the Ascension, of course, has a much deeper meaning. The risen Christ, visible and interacting with his closest followers for a short while during the resurrection, is returning to God. But not alone. And his closest followers are not left alone, neither are those followers who will come after and believe. The prayer of Jesus to God is:
“I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us…” John 17:20-21
We are also in the yearly rhythm of our National Reconciliation Week. Non-indigenous Australians are implored to sit and listen to the truth telling from our First Nations People. Such as the 85-95% decline in Aboriginal populations in just 150 years of settlement by Europeans. The stories, the truth tellings are sobering, harrowing and gut-wrenching for those of us who are not indigenous but call Australia home.
As Rowan Williams remarked one Easter:
“Death does not end relationships between human persons and between human persons and God, and this may be sobering news as well as joyful, sobering especially for an empire with blood of its hands.” Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury’s Easter sermon 2004
May I leave you this week with the wonderful collaboration of author Celia Kemp and artist The Reverend Glenn Loughrey A Voice in the Wilderness
Blessings
Ceri
