Reflection on the readings for the 14 May, Ascension Day
- 5 days ago
- 3 min read
Readings: Acts 1:1-11; Ephesians 1:15-end; Luke 24:44-end
Today’s reflection is by the Vicar, the Revd Canon Jonathan Cain.
What were the chances of that?
Katherine Brunt, Arran Brindle, Charlotte Edwards, Clare Connor, Lydia Greenway, Isa Guha, Jenny Gunn, Beth Morgan, Laura Newton, Jane Smit, Claire Taylor. The names of eleven women. Do you recognise them? Well, these were the England women cricketers who won the Ashes Series against Australia in 2005. This was the same year in which the England men’s cricket team also won the Ashes series and this, sadly, rather overshadowed the women’s result. I heard the story of these cricketing women on a recent episode of The Reunion with Kirsty Wark. Some members of the team remarked that when the two open-top buses made a victory parade around the streets of London on the days after the deciding matches, most in the crowd thought the women’s team were wives and girlfriends (WAGS).
Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James, Simon, Jude. The names of a different eleven. The eleven disciples commissioned by Jesus as his witnesses in the gospel reading this evening; the eleven who "were gazing up towards heaven" as Jesus was "lifted up."
Have these two lists got anything in common? Well, they are both lists of eleven people. They're also both lists of eleven people who pulled off something seemingly remarkable.
At the beginning of the 2005 series, the England women’s cricket team hadn’t won an Ashes series since 1963. Bookmakers offered odds of 12/1 for an England victory which, in a two-horse race, is pretty long odds. Earlier in 2005 England were beaten in the semi-finals of the Cricket World Cup by Australia. Their chances of success were not favoured!
I wonder what odds bookmakers would have offered on the eleven disciples of Jesus spreading the gospel and founding the Church? In that reunion interview the England cricket team spoke of stable and inspirational management in the run up to and during the Ashes series. Jesus, the manager and leader of the disciples, was "received up into heaven", leaving them, a rag-tag array of flaky fishermen and tax-collectors to it. Or did he? Leave them to it, I mean.
Jesus was present with his disciples for a ministry of about three years. He was crucified, died and resurrected on the third day, and for the forty days between Easter Day and today, the Ascension, was present with them again, although in a different way. And then he was "carried up into heaven". There is a sense in which the Ascension is about the absence of Jesus.
But then the New Testament witnesses suggest that the disciples were able to preach everywhere and perform signs because the Lord was "working with them". So, there is also a sense in which the Ascension is about the presence of Jesus. Or perhaps we should say that the Ascension is about the absence and the presence of God, which as Christians we understand as a dynamic relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
In what sense does an act of worship, like ours here this evening, give expression to this understanding of a dynamic relationship? The presence of God, the absence of God, both at the same time? It's complicated, but it is true to say that to recognise absence we must first have experience of presence. Or to put it another way, we don't miss people we don't know. So, in a world which seemingly exhibits many signs of the absence of God, out worship expresses a longing for God's presence; a presence that we know, a presence that we crave, a presence that we recognise chiefly in Jesus Christ.
“Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards heaven?” Said the two men in white apparel to the disciples. So, they stopped looking up, looked at each other, and accepted the responsibility to continue Jesus' work. They devoted themselves to prayer, and in Jesus’ name they cast out demons, they spoke with new tongues, they laid hands on the sick and healed them, they preached the Gospel everywhere.
What were the chances of that? What were the chances that what the disciples started, we would be continuing today? 12 to 1, 10000 to 1. No. With Jesus at the right hand of God, and with the power of the Holy Spirit, a power far greater than even the rivalry between England and Australia, it was a racing certainty.
Amen.