A prayer for personal transformation by Angela Ashwin:

Lord of my life,

I give you my time, my reputation,

my worries and my desires.

Thank you that you receive whatever I offer

and transform it,

so that this gift of my life

is taken up into the great energy of love.

This is a prayer that anyone can pray. It is a prayer made possible by the Ascension of the risen Jesus to his heavenly throne as king.

The Ascension of Jesus is celebrated on the 40th day of the 50 day feast of Easter. Ascension Day was last Thursday and today’s readings keep our attention focussed on the Ascension of Jesus but also look forward to the coming of the Holy Spirit.

It is Luke, both at the end of his Gospel and at the beginning of his work The Acts of the Apostles who gives us a realistic picture of the Ascension. Jesus leads his disciples out to the Mount of Olives. It’s a real place; you can go there. He is lifted upwards and a cloud comes veiling him from their sight. Two men in white then appear and assure the disciples that Jesus will, one day, return. We can picture this scene in imagination. Artists through the centuries have painted it.

The original version of Mark’s gospel does not mention it at all.  On Easter morning, the disciples are simply told by an angel that Jesus has been raised and they are to go to Galilee where they will meet him.

Matthew in his Gospel builds on this. He describes the meeting in Galilee and gives us a hint of what the Ascension might be about. ‘Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ The Ascension is about Jesus receiving ‘all authority both in heaven and on earth’. Jesus is not only raised from the dead, he is king and universal Lord.

John in our Gospel reading this morning casts further light on its meaning. The gospel reading came from John 17. This chapter is one of the climaxes in the Gospel and is sometimes called ‘The High Priestly Prayer of Jesus’. As in Matthew, Jesus has all authority: ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people.’ Jesus has complete authority ‘over all people’.

We begin to understand that the risen and ascended Jesus is the one who has been given universal authority. It is, of course, important that we understand what is the source and nature of this authority and what sort of power it is that is exercised. Our society is rather nervous about ‘authority’ and ‘power’. We’re sceptical about the motives of people who claim it. So it’s going to be vital to understand what sort of authority and power Jesus has.

In his high priestly prayer Jesus continues, ‘I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.’  ‘Finishing the work.’ That reminds us of the crucifixion. Jesus’ last words from the cross, according to John, are ‘It is finished’. Jesus’ authority and power are expressed in his dying. Another work that Jesus did which the Father gave him to do was to wash the disciples’ feet. This, John tells us, was an act of love, loving the disciples to the end. Jesus’ authority and power are about the exercise of love. In fact, it is the love of God that is expressed here. It is the love beyond love. what Dante called at the very end of his Divine Comedy, ‘the love that moves the sun and other stars.’ It is the love behind all love. Beyond our imagining, but the love that we recognise when it breaks through in human lives. What the prayer I read out at the beginning called ‘the great energy of  love’.

The Ascension is also about our involvement with the life of God. The Ascension is not something to be merely observed. It is to be shared in. Jesus prays, ‘And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.’ The Ascension is Jesus going to the Father. John tells us that Jesus came from the bosom of the Father and it is there that he returns.

But he does not return as he came. He came by taking our flesh. ‘And the word become flesh’. He takes on our humanity and he takes our humanity into the heart of the Father. This is John’s deep, deep insight. Our humanity is in the heart, in the primordial love of the Father. Not just ours but, potentially at the very least, all people. ‘I will draw all people to myself’, says Jesus.

To know and experience ourselves in the Father’s heart is what the Christian Church calls ‘communion’. ‘Communion’ a big New Testament word. And we know and we experience this communion. Most obviously in what we are doing now, celebrating the Eucharist. Which culminates in the act of ‘holy communion’. And, as the advert used to say, ‘It does what is says on the tin’. Holy communion. This is communion with the Lord, resting in his loving heart, being made holy and capable of love,  being transformed and being enabled to transform those around us. It releases in us the life of the Holy Spirit, the promise of the ascended Jesus. It makes possible a prayer like this:

Lord of my life,

I give you my time, my reputation,

my worries and my desires.

Thank you that you receive whatever I offer

and transform it,

so that this gift of my life

is taken up into the great energy of love.

Service: Canon Bill Croft –21st May 2023

Readings: Acts 1.6-14; 1 Peter 4.12-14, 5.6-11; John 17.1-11