Ascension Day

We celebrate the ascension of Christ into heaven today.

But there is no "up" in this ascension because Christ is at the right hand of God, and God's hand is in all creation. There is no "up" to heaven, because heaven surrounds us. And just so, Jesus surrounds us in his divine presence, gone from us in bodily form, but still with us.

In the propers for this Sunday, the 7th Sunday of Easter, we will read the very last of the High Priestly Prayer, in the Gospel of John, where Jesus asks that God provide his faith community with the same love shown through Christ; that the faith community be in God as Jesus is in God. Today, in the ascension, Christ leaves this earthly realm, but takes us with him in the divine relationship.

We the faith community are now the "locus of love" in the world, showing and mirroring the divine relationship of God and Jesus. We are the divine relationship, in its intimacy, its mutuality, its reciprocity. We the faith community, not a bunch of individuals, but a true community of interconnectedness, are in this together, this love of the world. Pray with Jesus, our intercessor, that God will give us all the glory of this intimate divine relationship, give us peace and love abounding, as we continue the work begun for us in Jesus, the Word made flesh.