Dear friends,
Welcome to my second update for this week as promised.
Tomorrow morning we have two celebrations of Holy Communion in Middle ESK Moor:
9:00 Traditional Communion in Lealholm at St James'
10:45 Celtic Communion in Glaisdale at St Thomas’
Please join me at one of those celebrations if you can. The first one will be in our traditional format, and the later celebration in Glaisdale will be in a ‘Celtic’ style as an experiment to try something new for the summer months.
If you can help with refreshments after the celebration in Glaisdale please reply to this email ASAP. I will provide mugs, hot water, tea and coffee, milk and sugar, we just need plates, biscuits and cake! I do hope you can help.
If anyone needs a lift to either service, again please reply to this message.
A copy of my sermon for Ascension Day is included below, along with some details on ‘Thy Kingdom Come.’
With love and summer blessings,
Reverend Anthony
Tomorrow we will be continuing the Thy Kingdom Come journey from Ascension to Pentecost. Can you think of five people to pray for over the next week?
Please follow this link for the Readings that go with the sermon Reverend Anthony preached on Thursday in Goathland:
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts together be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock, and redeemer. Amen.
There’s an ancient mosque built over a rock on the Mount of Olives outside the old city of Jerusalem. It’s not used for prayers and it’s completely empty except for a glass case over a place where the bare rock forms part of the floor. In the rock is an indentation said to be the footprint left by Jesus as he ascended to heaven. Jerusalem is a holy city for the three great religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. And the footprint in the rock is a place of pilgrimage for both Christians and Muslims, who may light a candle and worship silently at the site where Jesus was last seen on earth. For Muslims, the site gives a memory of Jesus, a great prophet. But for Christians this small, unassuming place bears witness to the continuing life of the risen Christ, God incarnate.
What are we to make of the story of the Ascension as told in the New Testament? Did it happen as Luke says, in his Gospel and in Acts? Is it true? Or should we regard it as a legend? Interestingly, only Luke, the storyteller, gives any details about the Ascension. Unlike Matthew and Mark, Luke - who brings us the delightful details of the Christmas story and the excitement of the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost - elaborates on the story of the Ascension and adds plenty of flesh to the bare bones. Luke ends his Gospel with the briefest of statements, "While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven." But Luke begins his second book, the Acts of the Apostles, with a much more colourful account of what might have happened.
In a style reminiscent of the story of the Ascension of Elijah in the Old Testament (in Second Kings) Luke pictures a cloud which gathers up Jesus and removes him from the disciples' sight. The bemused disciples then see two angels in white robes, who ask mysteriously, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.' Clearly whatever happened had a profound effect upon the disciples, for they all returned to Jerusalem to the upper room and together with "the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and with his brothers" devoted themselves to prayer. Perhaps the disciples learned more during their weeks with the risen Jesus than they did during the years of his earthly ministry. When Jesus disappeared for good, they were no longer the terrified human beings that they had been after his execution. Even before the day of Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit, Peter, the disciple who had denied that he ever knew Jesus, was boldly and openly preaching the Gospel.
Luke might have used his imagination to fill in the gaps left by Jesus' final disappearance from earth, and to appeal to the mindset of first-century people who lived in a world of magic and myths and legends. Or the Ascension may have happened exactly as described. But the factual details are probably less important than the truths conveyed by the account. After all, a vivid story helps us to remember truths easily. When Jesus died, the disciples were distraught. But after he ascended, they were full of confidence and deep spirituality. What made the difference? On both occasions Jesus had disappeared, apparently to be seen no more on earth. But after the Ascension he definitely wouldn’t be seen anymore, so we might perhaps have expected the disciples to be even more distraught than they were after his death. But, somehow, meeting with the risen Christ had transformed their lives. Terror and anguish were replaced by prayerfulness, enthusiasm and confidence. They realised that a new dimension of life continues after death. And, today, nothing has changed. Meeting with the risen Christ day by day still transforms lives. And we, who meet with the risen Christ, need no longer fear death. And that’s because we know that God loves each of us individually.
So, let’s celebrate that love for each of us on this special Ascension Day, and let’s continue to ask the Holy Spirit how best we can share that love in our communities.
Amen
---
The Reverend Anthony Bennett
Interim Minister – the Benefice of Middle ESK Moor
---
These two books, edited by Jane Williams, are continuing to be very helpful with planning my sermon writing:
Williams, J (2009), Ed., ‘Lost for Words, A Sermon Resource for the Anglican Three Year Cycle,’ Redemptorist Publications, Chawton, UK.
Williams, J (2011), Ed., ‘Lectionary Reflections, Years A, B and C.’ Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, UK.