Eve of the Ascension

Saints and Seasons 

Forty is quite a famous number in the Bible, and here we are again. 40 days after Jesus was raised from the dead, we celebrate the Ascension (like Easter, it’s a moveable feast: this year, May 9, with Pentecost following 10 days later, on the 19th.) Actually, maybe “commemorate” would be a better word, since I have no doubt that the departure was a bittersweet event in the lives of the disciples. And I don’t mean just the remaining 11 apostles - I mean all of them, His Mother Mary, Mary Magdalene and the many unnamed others.The circle has already expanded greatly. 

Throughout the 40 days of Easter, Jesus has appeared to them - wounds and all - to reassure, encourage, upbraid, call, instruct, chide, command and comfort those whom He had loved. But that chapter now closes and the days of Jesus, resurrected but physically present, are over.  As they stand looking upward, astonished, the angel who was watching them watching Him, asks, in a reprise of the question at the grave:  “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?”  

What do they do next?  They have to continue on, that much was clear. They returned to that upper room in Jerusalem and they stayed there together. (I can’t help but think that Thomas’ previous experience of being AWOL is well remembered.) Jesus had chosen twelve apostles, and they were down to 11, so their first action was to find a replacement for Judas Iscariot, and Matthias was chosen. 

Then they waited. And on the 50th day after that amazing Resurrection morn, the Holy Spirit swept into their lives like wind, like flames, like fire, and neither they nor the world has ever been the same again.  

Consider the change in just one individual: Simon Peter, who had been so afraid that he denied even knowing Jesus the night before the crucifixion. We subsequently see him after he and John had been arrested and told to shut up about this Jesus fellow and His healing power. This time the response was far from denial:  Peter replies "whether it is right to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard.”  Released, they go back to the rest and together pray for guidance and direction:  “Now, Lord, look at their threats and grant to your servants to speak your word with all boldness while you stretch forth your hand and heal.”  (Acts 4:20,29)   It’s our business to speak the truth with boldness, the results are up to God.  

This is just one story. But put them all together and we see that the coming of the Holy Spirit changed this dispirited band of followers into fired up troublemakers, risk takers, lovers of God who went out and “turned the whole world upside down,” as the song says. May She do the same for us. 

Louise Buck

May 2013 

Written for "The Gospel at St David's" the monthly newsletter 
of St David's Episcopal Church., San Diego, CA