The Place to Start: an Ascension Day Reflection

We’re just a few days removed from Mother’s Day. On top of the piano Rose has placed the cards she received from our boys. The tulip the restaurant gave her is beginning to wilt and the chocolates that greeted her on Sunday morning have long been consumed (mostly by the boys who presented the gift!).

I’m sure Rose would agree that the most precious of these memories of earlier this week are three simple words written by one of our sons… 

“I love you”

As a parent I know the effect these words have on me – I melt right to my emotional core. But I have also seen the effect that these powerful words have on grandparents, close friends, extended family members, and even complete strangers. A rush of tears, a broad smile, stunned silence, laughter, a hug…

The expression of love can change a mood, redirect a conversation, end an argument, restore hope, offer healing in brokenness, and shine great beams of light into even the darkest day. Is it any wonder that this is where Jesus wanted his disciples to begin? This is the place to start… “

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” (John 13:34, NIV)

Jesus spoke these words on a Thursday, but it was a Thursday very different from the celebration of this Ascension Thursday. It was a Thursday on which all hell would break loose and show its fury. The events that John and the other disciples were about to witness would be anything but filled with love. And yet the journey which Jesus choose to take through those days is for us a display of perfect love.

Within 24 hours of that Thursday, Jesus the Christ – rabbi, teacher, friend – would be nailed to a cruel cross. The disciples would be scattered – one was already on his way to betray him, another would deny him, all of them would run. But even so, just before these final events of Christ’s passion, Jesus spoke of love… “as I have loved you, so you must love one another”

Now jump ahead to the celebration that we mark as Ascension Day. Many of us likely won’t gather for a worship service or Ascension related celebration today – maybe you did in the past?

For us this is a day of celebration! A few years ago in the daily devotional Our Daily Bread, W. H. Griffith Thomas suggested, “The ascension is not only a great fact of the New Testament, but a great factor in the life of Christ and Christians, and no complete view of Jesus Christ is possible unless the ascension and its consequences are included.” And Richard De Haan continued in the same devotional: “Think of it! Jesus not only died, but He rose from the grave, went back to the Father, and is interceding for us right now.  And He is coming again.” (I think there should have been an exclamation point at the end of that sentence!)

As followers/disciples of Christ, the Ascension is a reminder and an invitation to celebrate knowing that Christ is risen victorious – the victory has already been won!

For those first disciples, these 40 days since Easter Sunday – since that resurrection morning – have been a whirlwind of trying to figure out what exactly is going on. They have received convincing proof that yes, their Lord has indeed been resurrected from the dead. They have eaten with him, been encouraged by his “presence” with them – they did note that something was different! But even so the disciples are unsure of what to make of all of this. In Acts 1:6 after Jesus reminds them of what he has told them several times before they still ask, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

Immediately after Jesus responds by commissioning his followers to be his ambassadors throughout the world…he is gone! Taken up into the clouds leaving the disciples to stare in stunned silence…

I imagine John standing there amongst his fellow disciples, mouth open, staring up at the sky. I wonder what the disciples were thinking just then, just before those angels appeared. Maybe it was something like:

Okay, what do we do now?

Where do we go from here? 

How do we keep this going? 

Where do we start?

Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria…the ends of the earth…that’s huge

After the angels appeared to the disciples there on the Mount of Olives, Luke skips over the disciples reaction. Instead he merely comments that they walked back to Jerusalem, about a days journey. And when they arrived, about 120 followers of Jesus, went up to the room in which they were staying and immediately began to have a prayer meeting.

The first act of this gathered body was to mutually encourage each other by staying together and committing themselves to prayer before any decisions were made or any course of action taken – they began by showing love one to another.

“Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)

This is the place to start.

The example of Christ’s love which endured a cross serves as the anchor, the starting block, the foundation for the church. The challenge/command to love one another permeates all that follows in the New Testament, including the worship life of the early church.

In Acts 2 following the anointing of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost the church formed around the singular action of showing love one to another, holding their possessions in common and sharing with one another so that no had a need. By Acts 15 when the early church was faced with the challenge of what to do with all these converts joining them – people from different ethnic backgrounds, across cultures, crossing all dividing lines – the church responded in love even setting aside the rules, not to accommodate, but rather to live out Christ’s command to love one another.

In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul writes… “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” (v.1-3)

In 1 Peter 4:8, Peter writes… “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”

And in 1 John 3:11, John sums up the starting point for the church: “This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.”

When the disciples returned from the Mount of Olives, probably still scratching their heads and wondering how they would accomplish this great mandate which Christ gave to them, they took as their starting point a community based upon love. From that starting point, in community and with the help, encouragement, and counsel of the Holy Spirit the church grew and grew and grew some more…

Through persecution, trail, suffering, threat of death and even the tortured death of leaders like Stephen, the community based upon love prevailed. Through love – the love they first showed one to another – these followers of Jesus got the attention of their neighbours. And the early church understood that love could redirect a conversation, end an argument, restore hope, offer healing in brokenness, and shine great beams of light into even the darkest day.

So what does this all mean for us on Ascension Day?

If “the ascension is…a great factor in the life of Christ and Christians”

If we in fact believe that Christ has not only conquered death, but has returned victorious to the Father, is interceding on our behalf, and will one day soon return

Ascension day invites – but also offers the challenge – to rediscover the place to start…

Creating stellar programs and offering a decent sermon, supporting MCC hard at work helping earthquake ravaged Nepal, even telling the world about this amazing story of a Saviour who has ascended to the right hand of the Father…all of this is empty and meaningless if our neighbours don’t see the genuine love that we have for them…that we have for one another…

Here in North America we have unfortunately allowed the church to become almost synonymous with guilt, condemnation, and judgement. We have allowed our society to define love as sexualized, private, hidden, and entirely none of your business!

A number of years ago the Carpenters had a hit song titled “What the World Needs Now” and the opening stanza suggested that…

What the world needs now is love sweet love,
            It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.
            What the world needs now is love sweet love,
            no not just for some but for everyone.

If we can rediscover this love…

A love that endured a cross,

conquered the grave,

and ascended victoriously to intercede on our behalf…

A love that crossed boundaries of ethnicity,

culture,

politics…

A love that even set aside the rules so that love would not be sacrificed!

Then I think in love we have the opportunity to shape conversations...

To offer a real hope…

To invite the broken, the hurting, the disenfranchised, the proud, reckless, abandoned, dirty…

To invite our neighbours, friends, sisters, brothers, children and parents…

We have the privilege of sharing and shining the great beams of the love of Jesus Christ into even the darkest situations/struggles/circumstances.

Just before Jesus ascended into heaven he gave his followers a mission mandate to start at home, but eventually reach out to the world. It is our privilege to continue on in the footsteps of Christ and the early church that faithfully lived out a love for one another which impacted the world.

For us to continue, this same love needs to be fully embraced in the church, carried into our homes, and lived in our everyday lives. The victory and celebration of the Ascension was made possible because of 3 simple words which God has written on each of our hearts…

“I love you”

And just as those 3 simple words have changed your life forever…

This love – this starting place – has the power to change the world.

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