Good News in a Pandemic: 6. Ascension Day

Charles Haddon Spurgeon explains why, however sad we may feel, this day (perhaps more than any other) reminds us that we now have reason for great joy!!

Our Lord is risen from the dead; 

Our Jesus is gone up on high; 

The powers of hell are captive led— 

Dragged to the portals of the sky. 

I have known that one thought of our Lord’s exaltation lift me up from the borders of despair, in a dread hour, long since past, when reason almost reeled after great calamities had overtaken me. I recovered my balance and my peace of mind, in a single moment, by the recollection of that one text, “Wherefore God also has highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name.”

So long as He lives and reigns, all is well. Men may rave at me as they will, but what does it matter so long as He is exalted?  I want you, dear friends, to feel like that concerning your ascended Lord. Go home [During the pandemic we would amend to Stay Home!], and worship Him, and be filled with great joy.  

Happy Ascension Day!

I suppose it is understandable that there is a very limited celebration of Ascension.  Our minds are so earthbound that the thought of God joining us down here (Christmas) gives us a buzz that one of us (Jesus) joining the Godhead's throne up there doesn't give.

Given our earthliness it is typical that one of the old English customs that survives from Ascension Day (though often carried out on another date these days) is the beating of the bounds.  By this custom the margins of each parish were marked and noted.  Though in time blessings from above were also invocated it seems very weird that the movement of the Son of God from earth to heaven should be accompanied by the earth people marking out their plots of earth.

Anyway the clue is in the ascending, the significance of which is not where heaven is but that Christ is no longer on earth in the flesh.  Humanity has another home.  Instead of beating the bounds, Jesus has broken the bounds for us.