Thursday May 13 Ascension
Click here for simplified daily office prayers
Psalm 8
God is amazing in what God has created. It is astonishing that God cares for humans who are so small in comparison, because God has even given humans care for God’s amazing earth.
Psalm 47
God reigns over history and over the nations and has protected us. Praise to God!
Ezekiel 1: 1-28 What’s Ezekiel about?
This is a poetic description of an immense experience Ezekiel had of God’s glory. As we read it, it’s not helpful to try to put all the pieces together as if Ezekiel were drawing a picture for us. His intention is to communicate an experience of overwhelming awe when he is encountered by God. Notice that he repeatedly uses the phrase “something like” to communicate that the experience is beyond description, that the glory of God is indescribable. This experience will give Ezekiel strength to later proclaim some very unpopular truths.
This passage is chosen for today to suggest to us the cosmic glory that lies behind Jesus’ death and resurrection, and which the disciples glimpsed momentarily at his ascension, commemorated today.
For the next ten days, until Pentecost, we read from Ezekiel, the theme being that the people need to enact God’s justice if they are to experience the new life God has promised.
For Christians, this means that we must incorporate God’s victorious life in our own actions if it is to mean anything.
Matthew 28: 16-20 What’s Matthew about?
Jesus is taken up into heaven at the end of his earthly life. In Matthew this happens in Galilee where Jesus’ ministry started and where the early Christians had probably fled to when the Romans destroyed the temple around the time Matthew was writing.
In Luke’s gospel, Jesus ascends on Easter Day from Jerusalem because Luke wants to emphasize that the good news in Christ is so powerful that it spread from the capital city of the Jews to the capital city of the Roman empire.
The issue is not whether one description is more accurate than the other, but whether we are open to experiencing the power of God lying behind our own participation in God’s victory over evil.
This week’s collect:
Almighty God,
your Son Jesus Christ ascended to the throne of heaven
that he might rule over all things as Lord.
Keep the Church in the unity of the Spirit
and in the bond of his peace,
and bring the whole of creation
to worship at his feet,
who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Click here to share a comment on the web site.