Posts Tagged ‘Luke 24:44-53’
Ascension Day – God’s Waiting On Us – Br. Curtis Almquist
Br. Curtis Almquist
Ascension Day follows the high drama of Holy Week and Easter, days that are full of interpretation and significance. But Ascension Day is rather vacuous in meaning. Jesus says to his followers: Stay here. Wait. Wait until you have been clothed with power. Why the wait? Because of fear. They were still afraid.
Sixty years ago the great Secretary General of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjöld, wrote in his diary in Ascensiontide 1961: “…at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone – or Something – and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal.”1 As for Jesus’ disciples, just as for us: God is waiting for us to say Yes, to keep saying Yes to our own lives, which will open up this channel for God’s work within us and through us. Read More
Up, Down, and All Around – Br. Keith Nelson
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Acts 1:1-11; Ephesians 1:15-23; Luke 24:44-53
Before I entered monastic life, I experienced the Ascension in both its scriptural telling and its liturgical observance a bit the same way I experienced a lay-over between flights. Why this seemingly unnecessary stop on the journey from Easter to Pentecost – and so close to our final destination? Jesus had risen. Why did he now need to go up still farther – to a Heaven I certainly believe in but did not (and do not) regard to be “up” at all? In the monastery, where scripture rains from above and seeps up from below until it gets inside you, it was clear that the Ascension meant more – much, much more than I had assumed. But it still felt like an irritant – a grain of sand that might produce a pearl – one day.
My relationship with the Ascension is now very different. I now delight to get off the Easter-to-Ascension plane, stretch my legs, and take in the breath-taking view before climbing aboard for the Ascension-to-Pentecost leg of the journey. I understand why lay-overs and way-stations are necessary on long journeys – and what they can do to shift the perspective of the traveler toward the terrain. I understand that “direct flights” in the spiritual life are available only to angels. I do not understand the Ascension, anymore than I can levitate – or fly. But I love the Ascension because I love the Ascended Christ and I sense now more than ever what his Ascension means for us here below.
Thank the Good Giver – Br. Sean Glenn
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Job 38:1-11, 16-18
Luke 24:44-53
A world in need now summons us to labor, love, and give;
to make our life an offering to God that all may live;
the Church of Christ is calling us to make the dream come true:
a world redeemed by Christ-like love; all life in Christ made new.[1]
Rogationtide is upon us, dear friends: a little season within a season when the church traditionally remembers and prays for the good blessings of the earth, a fruitful harvest, and freedom from agricultural calamity. While the cycle of sowing and harvest leaves a less distinctive mark on our common life than it did in our more agricultural past, the church’s act of Rogation (from the Latin, Rogare, or “to ask”) still asks our attention and reflection. As we begin to feel the impending shifts in our global climate caused by two centuries of industrialization and consumerism, the church’s inherited awareness calls us to remember that, as we brothers pray at Compline, it is God’s “unfailing providence [that] sustains the world we live in and the life we live.”[2]This little handful of days in the church calendar is but one of the many reminders of our shared vocation as givers of thanks—thanks to God for the “wonderful works of creation,”[3]lest, like the wealthy landowner in this morning’s gospel, we mistake the gift for the giver and miss out on the living possibilities always before us.
God’s Waiting for Our Availability – Br. Curtis Almquist
Acts 1:1-11;
Ephesians 1:15-23;
Luke 24:44-53
Ascension Day follows the high drama of Holy Week: the palm-waving crowds, the last supper among friends, the betrayals, the scourging, the crucifixion and resurrection. All of those days are full of interpretation and meaning. But Ascension Day is rather vacuous of meaning. Jesus says to his followers,“Stay here. Wait. Wait until you have been clothed with power.”Why the wait? I think God is waiting for us, for you and for me, to say Yes with our own lives: our readiness or at least our willingness to co-operate with God for what God has in mind for our own lives.Dag Hammarskjöld, the great Secretary General of the United Nations, wrote in his diary just before Pentecost in 1961: “…at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone – or Something – and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal.”1 Say Yes to your own life. God is waiting for us to say Yes to our own lives, which will open up this channel of God’s power at work within us and through us. Read More