Worship

Sermon Archive

Thursday May 13, 2010
5:30 pm - Saint Thomas Church
Preacher: Fr Mead

Luke 24:49-53

Ascension Day Greetings 2010

Why do we observe the old tradition of extinguishing the Paschal Candle on the 40th day of Easter, Ascension Day, when Eastertide lasts 50 days, until Pentecost? The old tradition is connected to the 40-day period of the risen Lord’s appearances. It signifies the cessation of those appearances as our Lord ascends into the heavens, and the disciples wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit.

“It is good for you that I go away,” said Jesus to those disciples. They didn’t think so. They sensed his “going away” was his impending death, which killed them too; and then his Resurrection appearances reconstituted them, more or less as a circle (the word church is related to the word circle) gathered round and facing inward at the risen Lord Jesus. Why should his Ascension, another going away, be good either?

During the forty days of Easter our Lord taught his followers that the day he died was good, because God had always foreseen it as the price of his love for us sinners. It was not a catastrophic mistake; it was the greatest victory of all time. Jesus’ Resurrection from his grave on the third day was, among many things, God’s verdict on the life of his Son. Now, ascending to the Father and taking our human nature into the heart of the Trinity, the Son replaced himself by the Holy Spirit.

When the Holy Spirit came into the midst of that circle of disciples, he transformed them and turned them facing outward instead of inward, driving them and their successors to the four corners of the earth through space and time. We are here because of that Pentecostal exchange.

When I was a child I thought, just like the disciples, that the exchange was a bad deal. No deal! Why should there be? I wanted to be comfortably with Jesus, period. Why should God get Jesus, and we get the Church in his place? No deal, bad deal!

But I have grown up. Christ’s death, which I thought was the worst news, is the best news. Christ is certainly risen, but I would know nothing of this were it not for Pentecost and the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, now, we have a merciful and faithful high priest in the heavens, able to know and to sympathize with us in our trials and temptations; taking our prayers directly. No, it good that Jesus finished his course, and that we in turn, by the power of the Holy Spirit, grow to maturity in Christ, so that we can finish our course in faith. What a Friend we have in Jesus; all our sins and griefs to bear!

Alleluia. Christ the Lord ascendeth into heaven: O come, let us adore him. Alleluia.