Ascension Day: Out of Time

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Acts 1:1-11, psalm 47, Ephesians 1:15-end, Luke 24:44-end

The Ascension is something like a coming of age story. It is a clear marker in the story of the transformation of the people of God.  It was a bit of a jolt to me when I suddenly realised it was Ascension Day. It marks the end of the forty days of Easter. Now since the lock-down time has been doing strange things. Days and weeks are more fluid and measuring time is more difficult. Most people have lost elements of structure. The sense of crisis means people have been permanently switched on, And the nature of employment has often meant that either people are constantly working, or they’re never working. I was reading a book on memory recently, and the argument of the psychologist was that we measure time differently forwards and backwards. When we’re busy, time is perceived as passing more quickly; we’re more distracted.

But when we look back at time our perception is measured by ‘time posts’. Our brains create markers for significant memories. If there are lots of them it makes periods of time seem longer. So a year full of significant events – teenage years, for example, where we go through many new things, or years in which we go through a number of jobs and relationships, moving house etc. will seem like long years. If we’re hacking away at the same job and every day is much like another, looking back, our brain will contract the memories to what feels like a short period of time. So you might feel – wow the 90s really flew by!

 At present with weeks and weekends merging, without social engagements and nights out, everyone’s time will have collapsed and most of the nation probably feel that this season of Easter has both dragged in the passing, but seemed to have gone in a flash in retrospect. In St Margaret’s church the boards still read Lent 3. It’s almost as though Easter didn’t happen. And now we’re at Ascension. The direct presence of Easter, the joyful season, has passed. In our disorientation we may well feel we’ve missed it. For most of the Church of England, Ascension slips by unnoticed; A pleasant Thursday in May, when, in prediluvian days, choristers would sing madrigals from the towers at St John’s College, Cambridge. I suspect it’s not happening this year, though I guess if they’re each in different towers, maybe it is possible.

But it is a holy day of obligation. A crucial feast in the story of Jesus that the Church tells. It is a memory post in the Church’s year, which should shift the attitude and direction of our souls. We no longer look back – back to Jesus, back to the resurrection. We are no longer spiritual infants. We are no longer disciples looking to our master. We are no longer followers.

These are days of waiting, days of prayer. It chimes with the national mood, as the nation waits for the first steps in easing lockdown on 1 June, the day after Pentecost. Pentecost marks the coming of age of the Church. We will be no longer disciples but apostles; Sent out into the world. Here God is doing a new thing, and we must be prepared for it.

This year our Pentecost takes on a most significant meaning. Once again we are sent – to proclaim the Gospel, to teach, to baptise, to share bread and wine, to minister to and serve God’s people. But we are making this transition from crisis into this new age.

Anne send me a thought from Bishop Nick Baines, which asks us to ask ourselves four questions:

1.    What have we lost that we need to regain in the weeks and months ahead?

2.    What have we lost that should remain lost?

3.    What have we gained that must be retained in this new age?

4.    What have we gained recently that can be laid aside as we transition to the new thing.

This is what we should be thinking and praying about in these 9 days to Pentecost. It is an unprecedented moment in history right now. Things have happened in church, society and in people’s lives which offer new opportunities, new connections, new ways of operating. But there will be a huge gravitational pull back to earth. “Let’s return to how things were” (only of course there will be a huge number of displaced people suffering.)

That would be an anti-ascension.

But if we are able to hold on to what has emerged, new connections, new awareness of the people around us, heightened community and solidarity, new technology, There is the opportunity for a spiritual awakening. In the depth of our faith and in the reach of our church; We might see the Spirit move in this time and place. In the word’s of today’s hymn: ‘mighty Lord, in your ascension we by faith behold our own.’

God is doing a new thing. We are no longer following, but are sent. No longer disciples but apostles. In these days we are waiting for the Holy Spirit. ‘stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.’ Do we have that expectation, that readiness to receive the vision? Are we ready to change the world? to transform our parish? ‘Brothers and sisters, why do you stand looking up to heaven?’ God is doing a new thing. Amen.