Spirited Word
By God's Word proclaimed, the Holy Spirit works faith in God's grace in Jesus, when and where he pleases. Sermons by Pastor Adrian Kitson, Lutheran Church of Australia.
St Petri Lutheran Church, Nuriootpa, Barossa Valley, South Australia.
www.stpetri.org.au
Spirited Word
Ascending To Heaven?
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We draw to the close of these 50 days of Easter as we witness that rather changing moment of Jesus’ ascension. It is hard for us to know what to do with this account Luke gives us – not just once but twice.
We don’t treat it anything like Christmas or Easter. And yet, it must be pretty important for it to end Luke’s account of Jesus and begin Luke’s account of how the church began in his Book of Acts.
I wonder if we downplay this part of Jesus’ mission because we struggle to make sense of it. Does Jesus go somewhere else or stay right here? How does he stay here? Where is heaven and why are the disciples told to not worry about looking for Jesus in the clouds but head back to their life in the city and wait?
It seems that our culture and maybe our own view of heaven is laced with ancient Greek thought – that heaven is some far off other-worldly place to which Jesus went.
The only way we get to bridge that vast chasm when we die is with our so called ‘eternal soul’. When we die our soul flies away (with Jesus?) and finds its home in some cloudy space…
This is not Luke’s truth. This is not Christian belief through the centuries. This ascension is all about the still human Jesus ascending, but not some far off world of floating souls, but rising to take up his rule here with us!
May you know his presence and his rule in your life and work with us to keep fulfilling his purpose for us to bear witness to him everywhere.
Pastor Adrian