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.

Rise and Shine

Every August I feel like a stretched rubber band that snaps back from Transfiguration amazement to Mary-land of my mind. In the evenings me and my aspiring immortal friends get together and sing her to sleep, her own special night’s sleep that wakes her up near her Son again. I love to imagine Elijah hopping in his chariot yoked to magical white horses and flying up to God, only mother Mary is in there with him too.

No cancerous pain to battle, no stinky cold hospital room, no box for the cold stiff shell to be stored in or no hopeless fire to ashify! I know that a whole big lot of people think it’s a good idea to be burned after they leave their bodies, but I wonder if that isn’t like saying either, “I don’t believe the part where our bones will rise from their graves and God will dress them with new flesh.” Or, they think that God can put the ashes together just as well.

Nope, I don’t dare expect God to assemble a puzzle of ashes and I wish those I love the most wouldn’t either. What if expecting that is like when Satan suggested to Jesus that He fling himself from the mountain because God could catch Him. He said that He wouldn’t put God to the test. Well, I wish we aspiring immortals wouldn’t put God to that test either. I ask God for a whole lot of things that He doesn’t want to do, and He doesn’t do them. I sure don’t want to find out in the end that He doesn’t want to look for such tiny pieces of me during the most intense moments in all of history since the beginning of the world.

The best way to avoid the problem of burning or burial is to just disappear altogether like Elijah and Mary did. Mary and Elijah never had to leave their bodies at all. They just ascended when God said they were finished here, like it was time to go to Church...forever.

Maybe you and I will ascend too, like Mary and Elijah did. Of course I mean when the aspiring immortals, maybe millions of us, will meet Jesus in the sky on the last day. The most exciting thing to think about is that it can happen next week. While everyone is reading the newsy political blogs and getting all upset about this or that we are quietly packing the bags of our hearts to make sure that we love enough, forgive enough, and we are obedient enough to give our bodies the kind of lift that Mary had.

”Fret not, neither let your heart be troubled” is another way of saying, lighten up to make your hearts like helium balloons, it will make it easier to fly.

Happy Birthday Alayne.