Ascension Sunday

Christ has gone up! Now Christ in us leads all the world to glory. The Word finds voice in Fiery Breath; our lives relate the story of how God went through death and hell that we might have Emmanuel and Love’s eternal blessing. From “God Has Gone Up With Shouts of Joy” by James Hart Brumm

One of the great benefits of the Ascension is Christ’s promise “I will not leave you orphaned” but you will be baptized in the power of the Spirit. The Heidelberg Catechism says: “By the Spirit’s power we make the goal of our lives, not earthly things, but the things above where Christ is, sitting at God’s right hand” (HC 49). What are those otherworldly things? Are we talking about stuff so heavenly that it’s of no earthly good? No, just the opposite! We’re talking about God’s purposes for us and for our world, the mission of God in the world, the things to which Christ has called us. Our marching orders: You shall be my witnesses. And our “marching formation”: the new community of love empowered by the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of Love and the Source of Love’s Eternal Blessing. This is our newness. This is the new commandment: “Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” Friends in Christ, Jesus isn’t calling us to make up or enforce “club rules” about “who’s in” and “who’s out.” The body of Christ ain’t no country club—it’s a diverse and sometimes dysfunctional family. “Just as I have loved you, that you, sisters and brothers, love one another”: Love one another: Wash each other’s feet, serve each other. Love one another: Lay down your lives, give up your privileges, for one another. Love one another: Love your brothers and sisters across all racial and ethnic lines. Love the family whose kids are always in trouble and you think they could have been better parents but you don’t know the half of what they’ve gone through. Love those who get told by so-called GOOD PEOPLE that they’re MISFITS. Love one another: Love the weakest and oldest and youngest. Love the lonely troublemaker. Love the unlovable. Love one who votes differently than you. Love all God’s children in the same unconditional and unfathomable way that Christ loves you. The church that loves as Christ loves is blessed indeed.