The Ascension Of Our Lord
Devotional
Water From the Rock
Lectionary Devotional for Cycle C
Object:
They asked him, "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?" He replied, "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority."
-- Acts 1:6b-7
Humanity is mesmerized with the concept of time. The future tantalizes us with its myriad of possibilities. Jesus' advice in Matthew 6:34 about not being anxious about what will happen tomorrow seems to fall on deaf ears. We desperately want to know what will happen in the future.
Several times in the gospels the disciples, representing thoughts that we also have, tried to get Jesus to reveal the future to them. While Jesus would speak about the future in terms of the faithfulness of God, he refused to put a timetable on God's fulfillment of those promises. "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority." There are some things that need to be left up to God. Our task is to trust that God is faithful and to shape our lives in light of that trust.
The history of the church suggests how difficult it is to follow that advice. Some preachers have made enormous profits by predicting the timing of God's ending of the world. The fact that this contradicts the words of Jesus as recorded in the gospels, for example Mark 13:32, does not seem to deter their confident predictions. It is easy to become self-righteous in criticizing them, but in the local church we also let our anxiety about the future shape our decisions and actions.
The ascension of Jesus took him out of one particular moment in time and space and made him present in all times and all places. The disciples saw him ascending and "while he was going they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, 'Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?' "
Jesus is now of the future and of the present as he once was of the past. Like the disciples, we can no longer fix him in one place or time. Because he is of all time, all time is sacred, and we can trust him for the future and not be anxious. Our hope does not rest in our knowledge of the future but in who is waiting for us in the future.
We have celebrated the evidence that God will not be defeated by the evils of the world. The cross that was meant to be a sign of the world's violent rejection of the love and grace of God has been transformed into a sign of God's redemptive love. Now that we know that God, not death, will have the final word, let us live our lives in hope.
-- Acts 1:6b-7
Humanity is mesmerized with the concept of time. The future tantalizes us with its myriad of possibilities. Jesus' advice in Matthew 6:34 about not being anxious about what will happen tomorrow seems to fall on deaf ears. We desperately want to know what will happen in the future.
Several times in the gospels the disciples, representing thoughts that we also have, tried to get Jesus to reveal the future to them. While Jesus would speak about the future in terms of the faithfulness of God, he refused to put a timetable on God's fulfillment of those promises. "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority." There are some things that need to be left up to God. Our task is to trust that God is faithful and to shape our lives in light of that trust.
The history of the church suggests how difficult it is to follow that advice. Some preachers have made enormous profits by predicting the timing of God's ending of the world. The fact that this contradicts the words of Jesus as recorded in the gospels, for example Mark 13:32, does not seem to deter their confident predictions. It is easy to become self-righteous in criticizing them, but in the local church we also let our anxiety about the future shape our decisions and actions.
The ascension of Jesus took him out of one particular moment in time and space and made him present in all times and all places. The disciples saw him ascending and "while he was going they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, 'Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?' "
Jesus is now of the future and of the present as he once was of the past. Like the disciples, we can no longer fix him in one place or time. Because he is of all time, all time is sacred, and we can trust him for the future and not be anxious. Our hope does not rest in our knowledge of the future but in who is waiting for us in the future.
We have celebrated the evidence that God will not be defeated by the evils of the world. The cross that was meant to be a sign of the world's violent rejection of the love and grace of God has been transformed into a sign of God's redemptive love. Now that we know that God, not death, will have the final word, let us live our lives in hope.
