Ascension - pregnant with hope and possibility

The time between Ascension and Pentecost can be a time of hope and anxiety, of absence and anticipation, of liminal or pregnant space. It is therefore good to pause and acknowledge all the riches and gifts that swirl in this time and space.

If you are celebrating Easter Seven on Sunday then please follow the link below.

Easter Seven

In celebrating the Ascension of Jesus we acknowledge that the Easter season is drawing to its conclusion. First there is Ascension and then there is Pentecost. First there is the withdrawal of Jesus from the seen world and then there is the gifting of us ordinary ones with the Spirit so that we become not only followers but also bearers of light and hope in our world.

It has both been a long time coming and too soon.  We feel with the first disciples the loss of Jesus. Which one of us, having lost someone we love does not wish for one more day with him or her. And the disciples got their wish, day after day, for forty days. Jesus had died but was in their midst, and in a new and exciting way. Now he really leaves them, they see him go; they feel him depart from them. Yet they are excited even if a little apprehensive, they are hopeful about what will be next but mystified.

The text ( Luke 24:44-53) suggests that the disciples are not so much sad as filled with much joy. Their first separation had been traumatic: they had failed Jesus in various ways, seen him arrested, and from a distance seen him tortured and killed and buried. Then they saw him resurrected and got to spend more time with him and to have their relationship with him restored and enlarged. This separation is filled with wonder, promise and glory. Their reaction is no longer that of fear but of hope and anticipation. In the time between Ascension and Pentecost the disciples are said to be always in the Temple blessing God.

We can almost feel their relief and anticipation. But I also feel the burden of knowing how this turns out. Yes they will be filled with the power of the Spirit and will become mighty preachers, missionaries, and healers. But many will also become persecuted and some will become martyrs. Their hope that the power promised by Jesus might be about the restoration of Israel to its former and promised glory is a misunderstanding. They had hoped Jesus in his human life might become a mighty leader and reclaim Israel’s rightful place as chosen people but saw him die at the hands of Israel’s religious and Rome’s powerful. Now they are still hoping that the resurrected Jesus will empower them to see to fruition the restoration of Israel. But we know that Jerusalem is about to be raised to the ground and the people scattered. I find this the unspoken undercurrent or shadow of Pentecost – that we still hope for the naive outcome, for a return to the past, for a new world that is recognisably like the old.

At this time of year I am always struck by the experience of absence - its gift and its demands. I feel the absence, again, of the risen one. To have the  fears, pain and lostness of Holy Week so beautifully met and reassured as we do in the Easter season to only lose him again seems somehow truly emptying and yet necessary. Without the absence of the physical presence of Jesus there was not room for the giving of the spirit.

Some of us are better equipped for this experience than others but living with the uncertainty of the absence of the other is very hard for most of us. It is probably why so many begin another romance before the old failed loved is truly let go of and mourned; it is probably why most of us will not leave a job we have outgrown until the next one is secured; or why we fill the void of things we no longer believe with shiny new ideas before we have allowed the season of uncertainty and space to do its own work of renewal.

And yet absence, if we can bear it, can cleanse us, teach us, prepare us for fullness. Absence is both about mourning the loss of what and who has been before. It can also be about relief and rest and the necessary preparation for renewal and redirection.  Absence can give us time and space to more fully understand what has been before. How many of us have experienced our relationship with someone who has died actually deepens and grows after they have gone because the process of absence gives us new insights and perspectives. Absence both narrows our world and our options but can also leave space for new imaginings and new opportunities might be considered only because there is space. Absence when honoured and protected can be gift

And another way of understanding this time between the Ascension and Pentecost is that of liminal space which is both an ancient and a modern concept. (“Liminality in anthropology is the time of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of a rite of passage, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the rite is complete.” Wikipedia)

And how rich the liminal space in a heart, a soul, a mind that allows the flotsam and jetsam of dreams and peripheral glimpses, old ideas and new imaginings to be waded amongst, scampered through. No premature order insisted upon, just the faith and courage and curiosity to allow what was, what might be, what could never be, to tumble and play, to approach and retire in a mysterious tide not controlled or even understood by us. In this interim time between autumn and winter in the southern hemisphere (or spring and summer in the north), Eastertide and the ordinary Time of making real the Spirit of God in our world and lives, may we faithfully endure and be transformed.

It would be my hope, my prayer for us all that as we begin to rebuild a world beyond pandemic and political chaos and cruelty that we allow ourselves as individuals, families, churches, communities and nations, to dream, to imagine, to hope and plan for a world more just, inclusive, simpler in our material demands and more courageous in our policies. Let us not hurry back to where we were but identify the yearning and musings of the heart that has known hope and absence and glimpsed in one’s peripheral vision new possibilities. The worst has happened and now is the time to prepare to rebuild not only as brave individuals but as a spirit empowered people of God. Let us pause for this brief moment and then be ready for building a renewed world. Come Lord Jesus the Christ, be our companion through this luminal space, bring to birth all the hope and possibility we carry within.

This is my work informed by everything I have heard, read and experienced. I am indebted to the wisdom of others.