Happy Ascension Day!
Dear Friends,
Today is Ascension Day, the day forty days after Easter when we remember Jesus' Ascension into heaven before the eyes of the disciples. It's one of the principal feasts of the church year (which means it ranks right after Easter and Christmas). So happy Ascension Day!
And yet in a week such as this, with the horrific and awful shooting at the elementary school in Uvalde, we long for Jesus to come back down. Amid our lament, shock, hurt and anger, we sigh deeply “Come, Lord Jesus.” Would that he would just descend and sort all this out. We pray and we hurt.
And yet our longing points at something beyond this world of brokenness. There's a song to be sung in a world where we aren't praying for grieving parents and heartbroken siblings. We must not lose the hope that longing points to. And until then, it is our calling to bring a little of that heavenly melody into this world.
At the Ascension Chapel in the Episcopal Church of the Incarnation at Dallas, at the very top of the ceiling in the center of the crossing, there are two tiny feet bottoms. So as you sit in Ascension Chapel you see the view the disciples had of the ascension of Jesus. Those feet disappearing into the clouds would have been the last thing they saw.
The disciples at the actual Ascension event were caught rather flat-footed, staring up after the feet disappeared. So an angel showed up to tell them to stop looking up and start getting to work! It’s a good reminder that once Jesus’ feet went up to heaven (along with the rest of him), ours became the hands and feet with which Christ serves and loves the world. Thank you for doing such a great job this past year at being Christ’s hands and feet. We’ve done some amazing work in our community and in our congregation. No doubt God has much more for us to do in this broken and sinful world. We are too well reminded this week of how much we need it.
I hope you have a safe and fun Memorial Day weekend planned. Those who have gone before have made enormous sacrifices for the life we now share. If your plans haven’t taken you out of town, I hope you’ll make it to St. Andrew’s for worship and prayer. We’ll pray for our state, our nation, our culture, and our kids; we’ll thank God for those who made the ultimate sacrifice, we’ll give thanks for the calling to be Christ’s hands and feet in the world, and we’ll praise God for all his blessings to us.
In Christ,
Fr. Andrew
