Ascension Day Peace

We have the resources given to us by God to live life to the full. But sometimes we forget his presence when life is full of stress. Do you get stressed? I was coming out of Priory Meadow car park this morning after getting my little bit of haircut. A different girl this morning – Lauren – so we had to go through the usual – “doing anything nice at the weekend?” “Off work today?” “Do people go to church, then?”!!!! Coming out I hit this queue. A lady had we ascertained after about 20 minutes managed to break the ticket machine so the queue behind her got irate, shouted at her, blew horns at her, and clearly was in a hurry. When we meet situations like this we think we cannot cope, the blood pressure rises, we feel it is too much so we forget that actually it will all sort – even if we are a little bit late to the next appointment. We stress because we think the situation we are in we cannot get out of and we sink into despair because we just want life to be smooth.

Forty days ago concerning Jesus we began to celebrate: He is risen! Today the Church remembers his Ascension –– the taking up of Jesus, 40 days after the resurrection, in the presence of his gathered disciples. The disciples had the resources, his love, presence, power, leading, guiding, peace at the broken ticket machine of life, times when they got confused and life was tough. And now, as he prepares to leave them again I wonder whether their initial reaction is stress. How are we going to cope with the world, alone, our resources gone?

Many of us will know the depth of emotions wrapped up in separation. Most of us know the depths of separation – of absence and endings. We’ve been thinking this last week about VE Day – people whose families were torn apart by war, as some celebrated reunion, others mourned as loved ones went and never came back. We have seen another earthquake in Nepal, people gone, despair and tragedy. We have had an election we are still analysing. There were a group of MPs who lost their seats, some after many years of service, on a news programme yesterday talking about not having a clue what they are going to do now. Separation from a world that they knew well. In life we have times of painful numb periods – after redundancy, after bereavement or the end of a relationship, wondering how life will be for us on our own, and you wonder what those years together were all about. We are made to be together, and apart is very hard to cope with. The empty chair, the places of memory, the adjustment to a life without the person you wish were still there or the job you wish you still went out to do.

Sometimes in apparent absence there is a deeper presence -which is worth noting on Ascension Day.

Perhaps today teaches that it is okay to have things stop, yes, there is adjustment, but after the pain and the acceptance things have changed, there can be a movement that is liberating. New relationships, new adventures, things we could not do before. The church is hopeless at finishing things saying this has been good but it has run its course. Sometimes ending things can lead to a new beginning for us. We have to separate from things, let go, in order to pick up again and understand what God might be doing.

The local Jesus on Ascension Day became very new. Today says to the Church, God is still present to you and to me – even if sometimes we have to look hard. It’s as if he loves to invite us to find him through our pressing into the world with our eyes and ears open to discern him – perhaps where we might expect to find him least. We have to look for him all around us. People want to find God and talk about him. This is a largely churchless society, hence Lauren this morning “do people still go to church?”

Am I so stressed even by church, I get enraged in a queue like cross motorists? Have I forgotten that I am not alone, but maybe I have to adapt my thinking as Jesus moves me on? Am I prepared to live in the world, and follow Jesus way, and not my own ideas? 

"While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up to heaven. And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.‟

They ‘returned to Jerusalem with great joy.‟ They had an unshakeable conviction in God’s sovereign power over all the earth.They knew that whatever fate befell them as individuals; ultimately all would always be well.

Christ does sit at the right hand of God, guiding his Church and us his people – always. Stress, separation and being sent – when we feel alone, we need to turn to him, and when we realise his presence we need to go his way. I stood by this window on Monday - called peace - in Canterbury Cathedral, for a long time. Peace is offered to us and sometimes all we have to do is look up for it...