Ascension to Pentecost - Our Turn

Last Thursday, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, ascended to God His Father after His great mission on earth to reverse the separation between humanity and its Creator caused by our friend Eve, and her husband Adam. Jesus went back home to heaven from where He came. Apostle John told us this in his Gospel when he wrote, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.”

The time between Easter and the Ascension, when Jesus walked on earth in His new body is spectacular. There are only 11 sightings of Him. We know He ate food and walked through walls: two very fun things to do. It is said that He was showing us what our immortals bodies will be like. I’m so glad we will still be able to eat! “Thanks God!”

Finally one Thursday, because the powerful 40 day time period had passed, as it did when He was in the wilderness being tempted, as it did when Moses visited God on Mt. Sinai, as it did when Noah was in the ark, and the 40 year Exodus, and the 40 years of David’s reign; when the 40 days had passed, Jesus was ready, willing, and able to go Home.

It was no longer useful to God to have Jesus walking around His beloved planet Earth because His mission was accomplished. Besides, one man, as divine as He was, could only do so much. God, the Father, would replace Jesus with His own Holy Spirit.

Miracles are not enough, and never were, to restore the relationship between God and those whom He made in His image and likeness: that’s us aspiring immortals, His children, and His creation called mankind. Miracles are a good start, but only a start.

So that we could follow Jesus’ ascension to heaven, to God the Father in the presence of the host of angels, we need the Holy Spirit to guide us, and teach us, and heal, and comfort us.

In these days between Ascension and Pentecost, we experience in our souls, those receptors of God’s communication with us, the mysterious period of time when neither Jesus is here, nor has the Holy Spirit been sent. It is an empty time of loss and anticipation. Stop, think, and feel.

To experience through the imagination, is no less an experience. It is replete with sensory information that can be quite valuable to our formation as true children of God. In this ten-day period between the ascension and Pentecost, let us take some time to look around at a world with only the memory of Jesus and His amazing mission and His spectacular ascension. Let us anticipate something we could never imagine in our wildest dreams. God, the Holy Spirit will come to dwell within our bodies and minds one person at a time. If we can imagine what it is like to live without that aid, then perhaps when the time comes, we will be able to perceive the presence of the Spirit within and be in a perfect position to have our own ascension to the Father. Follow the Leader.

Glory Be to the Father

 

Crystal clear cut diamonds that scatter rainbows when her hand reaches or talks; musical tones with perfect pitch, symphonies penetrating to fill the core with delights; laughing out loud together till tears roll out of our eyes; the presence and being of men who are good fathers.   

He is the originator of a new life. He is the authority over the obedient. He is the guardian and protector who opens wide the door to exploration and magical discoveries. He is the teacher of the learned and the nurturer of the healthy. He is their provider. When he is tangible, he can hug and be hugged with strong arms that envelope his child with warmth and perfect peace.

The most blessed among us has four fathers, all sublime figures of perfect personhood. One, the father- half who bore us, in whose body, then heart we lived and who lives in our hearts, the man who first took our tiny hands and watched them grow into tools. Two grandfathers, a step behind but not less fatherly for it, and their Model, God, our Father who art in heaven, are the four-fathers of the happiest and strongest of immortals.

Glory be to good fathers today. You make your world glow. You men outlive your bodies for generations in the hearts and memories of your beloved children. Glory to you and thanksgiving to you and to the women who bestowed fatherhood upon you. May the Lord bless you and keep you, may He make His Countenance to shine upon you and in you. May He give you the desires of your heart, peace, and a place of leadership beside Him in Kingdom Come. Joy.