29/05/2025

In the Church's calendar of prayer, today marks the end of the worldly presence of the Incarnation as the new material reality of the risen Christ. It is Ascension Day and it is marked with "shouts of joy and trumpet blast".

Those who had known Jesus as family and friend, Mary, relatives and Apostles had now something else to digest and contemplate for the rest of their lives for Jesus had promised to be with them until the "end of time". Today, however, he leaves this world and returns to the Father.

I always try to remember that our scriptures are a record of actual events. They are an as accurate as any human could be, remembrances of days long gone. Luke is not an eye-witness of what he records in his Gospel but was one of the literally "anonymous Christians" who had formed the "Early Church" in Jerusalem.

I have to ask myself how well I could put together an account of what happened, complete with dialogue, in my life 30/40 years ago for this is what the earliest Gospel compilers, Matthew and Mark did.  There is no doubt that Jesus had imprinted himself into their human consciousness and was to complete that impression by the Holy Spirit event that would be the concluding action of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT in the foundation of the Church on St Peter.

Those who are to witness the Ascension have had a minimum of three years of living with Son of God, Son of man, the Bread from Heaven, the Good Shepherd, Light of the World, Gate of the sheepfold, the Resurrection and the life, the true Vine, the way the truth and the life and yet they are still fixated on the things of this world. 

They have seen miracles that have changed reality. They have heard the message of the Sermon on the Mount. Most of all they have known a completely sinless human being. Some of them  have witnessed the cruelest of deaths and are at that moment walking with Resurrected New Life and yet they still seem not to have understood "My kingdom is not of this world" as they ask " Will you, Lord at this time restore the kingdom to Israel."