A Church Holiday To Remember

Did you enjoy the recent holiday? I sure did. It was a wonderful day. No, I am not talking about Memorial Day. Yes, that is a terrific day to remember those men and women who served this country and enabled me to write this column. But, the holiday I am talking about is the church holiday of Ascension Day. Last Thursday (40 days after Easter) marked the day that Jesus Christ ascended into heaven as described in the book of Acts 1:9. Jesus disappeared into heaven after telling the people He would send an advocate, the Holy Spirit, to assist them (and us) from that time forward.
You may say, “Why should that particular day have any significance to me?” I thought you’d never ask! At that point, we know for sure, if we didn’t before, that God is aware and in touch with the human condition. In Jesus, we have THE human. The incarnation or birth has brought forth the ultimate human to make us holy and blameless before the Father. But this is no ordinary human. This man, Jesus, is God in the flesh, fully human fully divine, Emmanuel, God with us! Consequently, we understand that history is working in an organized fashion. We are not simply adrift in the world on our own like a ship at sea with a failed engine. No, we have a God who lives within history and at the same time outside of history. Our God is larger than history itself. In Jesus, God lets us know that He has taken the lead in our salvation, an achievement we ourselves cannot reach. In Jesus, the decisive moment in history has occurred. Jesus did not simply take off his humanity as if He were shedding an old overcoat. No, on Ascension Day, the human part of Jesus ascended to be a part of the Triune God forever. While humanity was inescapably plunged into darkness, the actions of the Triune God overcame it and brought us out. It is this victory accomplished by God, through Christ, that the Holy Spirit is revealing to the world. So, not only did God create the world and everything in it, God became one with us as well in order to break the grip of sin and death. Thus, God doesn’t care about our religion, only about how the work of Christ is breaking forth within our lives and showing itself to the world through our actions. In other words, God accomplished an incredible act in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Christ and it should burst out of us every day. Therefore, the way to find our own life is discovered by knowing that God has entered into our world and situation on a personal level in Christ. We have a God who claims each of us and calls us His children and wants the best for us. He knows us, both good and bad, and loves us anyway. WOW! That is Good News!