Sunday Mornings Ascension-Pentecost-Trinity-For us

June 2, 2019 at 10:45am

Ascension-Pentecost-Trinity

For us...

For us you were born,
for us you healed, preached, taught, and died.
For us you rose again.
For us you sit at the Father’s right hand and intercede.
All of this for us, even when we cannot understand it.
And so the word of Scripture is fulfilled: we love
because God first loved us.
—Scottish Book of Common Prayer

Ascension, Pentecost, and Trinity Sunday introduce big, important themes—the stuff of the great historic creeds. But perhaps the most amazing thing about these enormous concepts is that they have an influence on our individual lives and remind us that even the great Three-in-One is intimately concerned with each one of us.

What does the ascension of Christ mean? Just as the disciples stood on that hill wondering what to do next, we too wonder what the ascension actually means for Christian living -  the point being that the ascension changes our lives. God’s presence in our lives is not limited to contact with a physical person, but with the ever-present Spirit. As disciples, we are witnesses; as Christ’s body in the world, filled with the Spirit, we are participants in God’s presence in the world.

The Spirit arrives at Pentecost to people who are fractured and a world that is fallen. The disciples are still not entirely sure what comes next, now that Jesus has ascended. Jerusalem is filled with people who come from different places and speak different languages. It is the Spirit who breaks into this chaos and begins to guide us back to our senses. Everything is transformed  and the Spirit pulls our disordered lives back together, working not just in individuals but in the re-creation of the whole world. We are led out to preach, proclaim, and pray, with the Spirit inspiring our words and moving us to action.

Finally, Trinity Sunday. In John 15, Jesus reminds the disciples that they are connected to him, and through him connected to the Father. While this particular passage from John does not mention the Spirit, the Spirit is one of the other main themes of Jesus’ extended discourse with the disciples. We are connected to the entire Trinity. We are surrounded and nurtured by the interplay of the Trinity.

It is this connection that brings us into relationship with all of God’s people. The affection that enables us to greet one another with a holy kiss flows from our connection to the Trinity. The Trinity is the source of our care for each other and our model for loving community.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours; no hands but yours; no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which the compassion of Christ must look out on the world. Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good. Yours are the hands with which he is to bless his people. —Teresa of Avila, 1515-1582

 

Upcoming occurrences:

This Week...