88 days have passed since we gathered in groves to begin our yearly retreat. Lent began and the church offered us an opportunity to retreat from the world and to retreat into Christ. we were invited to examine our lives, seek renewal, and open ourselves to experience the power of Christ alive.
This experience of Christ alive parallels the experience of the apostles in today's first reading. Luke tells us that Jesus after the resurrection presented himself alive to the disciples. They saw him, and heard him. This was a presentation that was an invitation to new life.
When we gathered on Ash wed. we wanted that newness of life. We wanted the power of Christ alive to invigorate us, invigorate our spouse, our family, and invade our life.
So we came, promises in hand, seeking to make sacrifices, ready to offer things up, hoping and longing for a change.
We processed down the aisle to receive the ashes. We processed with our heads held low, hands in praying position, mind searching, and hearts rent.
Some of us came with a deep awareness of what was going on, of what God wanted and each step moved them deeper within.
Some of us came merely out of routine; we came because we always came. The desire for God and a new life remained buried beneath the anxiety and worldly concern of daily problems.
Some of us came for the first time and some of us came for the 80th time. Nonetheless we all were gathered for a common purpose; we wanted, we hoped for, we longed for a taste of the divine in our daily life.
As came down the aisle we were marked on foreheads with ashes and we heard these words, "remember you are dust and to dust you shall return."
Lent began with an act of humility. We were reminded of what was most real in our life that we are dust alive in the hands of God. We share the same nature as Adam; we are clay with the gift of life, not because we wanted it but because God chose to give it.
You are dust. This is a reality that humbles us and it strikes us not just in Lent but every time we gather at a funeral. We gather to bid farewell to one who loved us or to one whom we loved. We peer at the empty grave as the coffin hangs above and are hearts are full of grief as we pray these words of the church, "since God has chosen to call our brother from this life, we commit his body to the earth, for we are dust and unto dust we shall return."
And many of us are tempted to stop there. We are tempted to live as if the grave is our final destination. We enter this rat race of life and live as if we were merely rats destined to be dust for eternity. We let the world direct our desires, influence our actions, determine our life. We cling to possessions and we refuse to let go. We suffer terribly great fear and we have no freedom to love purely.
We ask the world to satisfy and it simply leaves us empty. But we trudge along building our empire of sand and our true value and worth remain buried beneath the dirt.
Not only do we treat ourselves like dirt but we treat other like dirt in the process by the way we speak, by what we choose to think about, how we lust and seek self-pleasure at the cost of others, by refusing to reconcile and refusing to give charity, refusing to live simply so that others may simply live.
We are left with sorrow, despair, emptiness and a tragic irreverence for life.
But something new happens today. Our lent has come full circle.
As we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension we discover not only do we share the same nature of Adam, dust alive in the hands of God, but in Christ something new is given, a greater dignity is bestowed.
In the feast of the Ascension, our attention is given direction, our life finds purpose.
Christ, in this feast, reveals that we are no longer just earth bound. He takes our humanity, our mortality, our flesh and blood, our dust come alive and he exalts it.
Our dust is completely united with God in full communion with Christ. Christ as God, is man, who makes space for our human existence, our dust, in the very existence of God himself.
As the psalmist reminds us, "from the dust he lifts up the lowly, he raises them on high."
Christ by his ascension, rehabilitates man's desires. He give us something more to hope for, to live for.
The humility of Ash Wed. finds it culmination in the exaltation of the Ascension.
We now have a new memory to guide us. we are no longer just motivated by the memory of death. Christ impresses upon us a memory of greatness as he ascends.
We no longer just look up from the grave but now we look down from above and are given greater clarity as to how to live and experience to fullness of the power of Christ alive.
The prayer at the grave side doesn't end with dust, though sometimes that is all we hear. The prayer continues, "since God has chosen to call our brother from this life, we commit his body to the earth , for we are dust and unto dust we shall return, but the Lord Jesus Christ will change our mortal bodies to be like his in glory for he is risen from the dead."
The ascension exalts us to greatness, exalts us to glory.
Jesus as he departs tells the Apostles to go make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded and behold i will be with you til the end of the age.
Jesus gives us an recipe for greatness. Humility of obedience gives way to the exaltation of greatness, our true destiny.
As Jesus ascends, he lifts his hands and blesses the Apostles. Thus, this is how we live, always beneath the blessing hands of Christ, as he ascends upward our world is open up to that which is above. All of heaven pours forth upon us, strengthening us in our need, empowering us to follow where he leads.
Humility of obedience gives way to exaltation of greatness.
We can refuse to let us be raised and seek to remain earth bound. We can refuse to let the ascension rehabilitate our desires. In doing so, we are left with the same ole life, where dust is no longer alive.
We can ascend with Christ or choose to remain behind.
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