Ascension 2012, Wideness

Ascension

John 16: 24-33

Ascension, Garofalo

Hitherto you have asked nothing in my name. Pray from the heart, and it will be given to your heart, that your joy may be fulfilled.

All this I have given to your souls in imagery. But the hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in pictures, but will tell you openly and unveiled about my Father, so that you can grasp it in full, knowing consciousness. Thus will I proclaim to you the being of the Father. On that day you will ask out of my power and in my name. And no longer will I ask the Father on your behalf. For the Father himself will love you because you have loved me, and have known in your hearts that I have come forth from the Father. I have come forth from the Father and I have come into this world.

I leave the sense world again and return to the world of the Father, of which you say that it is the world of death.”

Then Jesus’ disciples said, “Now you are speaking in clear thought and without imagery. Now we know that all things are revealed to you and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.”

Jesus answered, “Do you now feel my power in your heart? Behold, the time is coming, and has already come, when you will be scattered, each to his own loneliness. You will then also leave me alone. But I am not alone, for the Father is eternally united with me.

All this I have spoken to you so that in me you may find peace. In this world you will have great fear and hardship. But take courage. I have overcome the world.”

Ascension

May 17, 20, 2012

John 16: 24-33

The bees fly through light and air. They are collecting pollen grains to feed their young. For the blossoms, however, this visitation signals the beginning of their own death. Once pollinated, the blossom dies away to make way for the fruit.

Christ ascends into the light and air. He is both bee and blossom. He does not leave; He expands. He spreads Himself out both up into the heavens and down into the earth. He becomes the True Vine, the great World Tree, rooted in the earth, leaves reaching into the heavens. The poet describes this event:

Ascension, Mengs

Lightly in His upraised hands

was Heaven, Wideness,

Space, oh space!

Oh, astonished He felt the lavishing

Of this great light. Yet by storm-broken tree

His disciples could not grasp it,

How their Master now in silence, radiant

Now in ever bluer terraces

Climbed this heaven

Exceeded Himself.

Yet already a glance gave Him goal and direction,

And they were amazed, how He found the steps

Until He, in ever deeper light

He himself the light, now disappeared from their view.[1]

He expands into the far reaches of both heaven and earth. For His disciples however, this signals a kind of death—for He whom they love is lost to their sight. For ten days they will grieve the apparent loss. Like all who grieve, they will be absorbed in their memories of Him. But in ten days, at Pentecost, their pain will begin to bear fruit. What is germinating within them through His ever-presence will become in them soul fruits: the fruits of joyful understanding, fruits of tolerance, fruits of love for all fellow human beings.

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[1] Gottfried Fischer-Gravelius