6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” 9 And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, 11 and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:6-11)
Tomorrow, May 9th, is Ascension Day, which makes this Sunday, May 12th, Ascension Sunday (along with Mother’s Day). It doesn’t garner as much attention as the main holy days of the Christian calendar, like Christmas, Easter or Pentecost. Why bring attention to it? Isn’t it just an extension of Christ’s resurrection? After all, it was inevitable that he was going back to heaven from where he came at his birth.
Actually, Christ’s ascension to heaven is loaded with significance. The Heidelberg Catechism helps us understand how (Q/A’s #46-52):
Christ advocates and intercedes for us at God’s right hand (Rom. 8:34; 1 John 2:1).
An actual, physical human being is in heaven with God, demonstrating that other human beings (like us!), if we trust in him, will go to be with God as well (John 17:24; Eph. 2:4-6; Col. 3:1-4).
Because Christ has gone, he has left us His Spirit (John 14:16; Acts 2:33), who is the “down payment” of our inheritance (2 Cor. 5:5).
Because he sits at God’s right hand, Jesus is qualified to serve as the Head of His church (Eph. 1:20-23; Col. 1:18).
The bottom line of the Ascension is that Jesus Christ is KING! Not only did he live a perfect life, die for our sins, and rise again, but he lives and reigns at God the Father’s right hand with all the authority of God Himself. One day he will rule the world when he returns.
This means that we don’t need to live in dread of the present or in fear of the future. Christ holds the future, our future, and if our trust is in him, he holds us as well. He is sovereign even over this broken world and works for God’s glory and our good until he returns.
We can live confidently for him, even through adversity, knowing that one day he will restore and renew this sin-cursed world.
11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
(Ephesians 2:11-22)
In this passage, the apostle Paul addressed the most persistent and virulent hostility in his culture: that between Jews and Gentiles. He said that the gospel takes these enemies and makes them not just friends but brothers and sisters. A family.
The animosity between Jews and Gentiles in the Middle East today (particularly between Palestinians and Israelis and their supporters) is just one kind of hostility that, sadly, is currently a “normal” part of our fractured world. Protesters at Columbia, NYU and Yale are not just expressing their views on foreign policy. They are flinging hateful epithets, mocking individuals and blocking them from attending classes. Racial animus seems to be degenerating, not improving. On Sunday I addressed the issue of interracial marriage and how it has offended both White and Black communities at different times. I just read about a high school baseball team in Florida that was ripped apart by racial tensions, resulting in the cancellation of their season (which is devastating for many seniors offered college scholarships), federal discrimination lawsuits, and the termination of coaches, teachers and administrators. And these tensions originated primarily with parents and coaches, not players.
The vitriolic language we hear hurled to and from both sides of the political aisle, particularly in the blogosphere and on social media, is either a source or a result of the division we’re seeing in our country today, depending on your perspective. Debates over policy seem too often to devolve into personal attacks. From the highest levels of government, there is little to no restraint in addressing those who hold contrasting opinions about government. Politicians from the highest levels on down have resorted to schoolyard tactics, and they are trickling down to ground level. We may know in part how we got here, but it’s difficult to chart a path back. The genie is out of the bottle.
What do Paul’s words in Ephesians 2 have to say to the Body of Christ today? Is real unity even possible?
Absolutely it is. After all, Christ through his blood took us, people who were completely cut off from God, and brought us near (v. 13). He pursued us and made people who hated each other to be one in him (v. 14). How did he do it? He “abolished the law of commandments expressed in ordinances (v. 15).” That does not mean that he abolished the law itself; it means that he destroyed the misuse of the law to enslave people. He fulfilled the law so that sinners, religious and irreligious alike, could be one in Christ (v. 16).
It took Jesus’ violent death and resurrection to accomplish this, and it includes radically transforming the hearts of those who believe the gospel. That gospel not only preaches peace; it actually brings peace (v. 17). It brings peace because the Holy Spirit grants us access to the Father (v. 18). That relationship with God the Father makes us true brothers and sisters (v. 19). We are God’s House, and we have a bond that nothing on earth can break.
That unity with other believers is the fruit of the union we have with Christ. It is a necessary, definitional unity. And it requires us to put to death the divisions that come between people in the world. We choose to love the family of God in spite of what would otherwise divide us.
People of God, we have the delightful opportunity (and terrifying responsibility) to model before a watching world how gospel unity can destroy human divisiveness. We know it from God’s word. We’re experiencing it in the body of Christ at CTR right now. Let’s encourage this unity–cultivate it and see it explode into full flower–for the transformative impact that it can have on the people who walk through our doors and into our lives. That kind of unity can bring radical transformation in a very dark place.
Auntie Margaret is seated at right; her sister, Carol, is seated center; Jonathan is holding Charlie at left
Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; our God is merciful. The LORD preserves the simple; when I was brought low, he saved me. Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you. For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling; I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living…
What shall I render to the LORD for all his benefits to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD, I will pay my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people. Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints. (Psalm 116:5-9; 12-15)
I heard from my dad this morning that his oldest sister, my Auntie Margaret, went home to be with the Lord this morning. She had experienced significant medical issues for many years, though as recently as Sunday was doing better. A persistent infection caused her condition to worsen quickly this morning. Sadly, my cousin and his wife, who have cared beautifully for Margaret for many years, were not able to be with her when she died because of a Norovirus outbreak at the facility where she lived.
Margaret lived near Southampton, England, most of her life. She was a part of the “low church” (less liturgical) of the Church of England. As we were separated by the Atlantic Ocean, I did not know her well growing up. My relationship with her really began when she and my Uncle John flew over for our wedding in 1993. Allie and I corresponded over the years via Christmas cards, other letters, a few times by phone, and in person when she and my Auntie Carol visited in 2008.
That visit was special for us in many ways. The ladies worshiped at CTR the Sunday that they were here; at the time we met in the chapel at First Baptist Church on Union Street. They came to one of Jonathan’s soccer games, and read stories to his fourth grade class at Mt. St. Mary Academy. We spent quite a bit of time that visit talking–I found it fascinating to get an “insider’s” perspective on my dad’s childhood and emigration to the states–and I learned about Margaret’s relationship with the Lord. She could see, coming from a country where the evangelical church is also a very small percentage of the population, that there was a great need for gospel-driven churches here. She expressed such incredible encouragement to us and pride in us in the mission to which God had called us. Margaret even contributed financially to the church on occasion afterwards. I will never forget how much that affirmation meant to Allie and me personally during a very vulnerable season in the history of our church.
So Auntie Margaret’s passing leaves me with a lot of mixed emotions: relief that she is free of physical pain, joy for her homecoming with the Lord, and sadness that we won’t be together again this side of heaven. I’d like to share a liturgy I found today that expresses many of the feelings in my heart today. Maybe it’s a comfort for you too.
Do not be distant, O Lord, lest I find this burden of loss too heavy, and shrink from the necessary experience of my grief.
Do not be distant, O Lord, lest I become so mired in yesterday’s hurts, that I miss entirely the living gifts this day might hold.
Let me neither ignore my pain, pretending all is okay when it isn’t, nor coddle and magnify my pain, so that I dull my capacity to experience all that remains good in this life.
For joy that denies sorrow is neither hard-won, nor true, nor eternal. It is not real joy at all. And sorrow that refuses to make space for the return of joy and hope, in the end becomes nothing more than a temple for the worship of my own woundedness.
So give me strength, O God, to feel this grief deeply, never to hide my heart from it. And give me also hope enough to remain open to surprising encounters with joy, as one on a woodland path might stumble suddenly into dapplings of golden light.
Amidst the pain that lades these days, give me courage, O Lord; courage to live them fully, to love and to allow myself to be loved, to remember, grieve, and honor what was, to live with thanksgiving in what is, and to invest in the hope of what will be.
Be at work gilding these long heartbreaks with the advent of new joys, good friendships, true fellowships, unexpected delights. Remind me again and again of your goodness, your presence, your promises.
For this is who we are: a people of The Promise—a people shaped in the image of the God whose very being generates all joy in the universe, yet who also weeps and grieves its brokenness.
So we, your children, are also at liberty to lament our losses, even as we simultaneously rejoice in the hope of their coming restoration.
Let me learn now, O Lord, to do this as naturally as the inhale and exhale of a single breath:
To breathe out sorrow, to breathe in joy.
To breathe out lament, to breathe in hope.
To breathe out pain, to breathe in comfort.
To breathe out sorrow, to breathe in joy.
In one hand I grasp the burden of my grief, while with the other I reach for the hope of grief ’s redemption.
And here, between the tension of the two, between what was and what will be, in the very is of now, let my heart be surprised by, shaped by, warmed by, remade by, the same joy that forever wells within and radiates from your heart, O God.
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