When a beloved relative departs
after a visit, they might travel by aircraft to their destination. We watch the
plane taxi to the runway, take off and lift into the sky. How quickly it
becomes just a small dot in the heavens, before it passes beyond the clouds and
vanishes from our sight. We know that the same plane, flying away from us,
exists beyond our sight, and that the person we have seen off is still flying
in it, even though we see it no longer. And we know that if that person visit
us again by air, we will see the plane reappear out of the sky in very much the
same way as it departed.
Jesus’ Ascension is very much like
this. When he leaves his disciples on earth, he makes two comforting promises:
that he will prepare a place for them in heaven, his home, and that he will
return to take them back with him, never to be separated from him again. The
separation caused by his Ascension will be temporary; and while they wait for
him, they are charged with spreading the Good News of his death, Resurrection
and Return to the whole world, so that when he does return, there will be many
whom he will take with him into his eternal kingdom.
This promise is for us as well. If
we love him and long for him, he will prepare a place for us. But as with his
Apostles, he expects us to share the Good News with those around us. How we
speak, how we live; how our witness draws others to Jesus; all this is part of
the way that we prepare for eternal life with him. Salvation, heaven, are not
gifts given to us for ourselves alone; we are to be the means by which others
are brought to God. As we go about our busy daily lives, let us keep this
thought in mind. Through our actions may many others be brought to Jesus, that
he may prepare a place for them as well as us.
Fr Phillip.
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