God ascends to shouts of joy, alleluia, alleluia.
The Lord to the blast of trumpets, alleluia, alleluia.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,
God ascends to shouts of joy, alleluia, alleluia.
A while back I bought a prayer book which, among other things, notes the days of the Liturgical Year. Though it has not been part of my evangelical Protestant upbringing, to me there’s something really cool about noting all of the important days, not just the “big ones”–Easter Sunday and Christmas.
For example, like Advent and Lent, Easter is a whole season, not just a day: seven weeks that stretch from Easter Sunday until Pentecost. For all these seven weeks after the resurrection, Jesus was walking around on this earth, showing himself to people and spending time with his disciples. The resurrection was not just some flash in the pan, a remarkable event that happened and then was over just as fast. It was the beginning of forty days of relationship building here on earth, and then of relationship building that continued beyond the boundaries of time and space.
In fact, it still isn’t over. Today is Ascension, marking the day when Jesus ascended into heaven to sit down at the right hand of the Father. That is the present-day, astounding reality with which we live: not just that Jesus died, not just that he was resurrected, but that he lives, today, and he is sitting in the most powerful position in the universe, interceding for us.
Happy Ascension Day. May all our thoughts and actions today be influenced by the reality that Jesus is alive, on the throne, and interceding for us–today and every day of our lives. Our faith is so much more than a nod to something that happened, once, a long time. It’s an ongoing relationship, an ongoing walk of trust and love for the One who is ascended on high.
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