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.  

Manchester's Tears

Words like appalling, barbaric, evil are once again everywhere after last night's attack on an audience of families and notably young females in Manchester.  Just when we think the worst has happened another worst comes along.  Sometimes it is hard to be human.  For that reason, we pray for those who mourn without ourselves being able to enter the darkness they are suddenly inhabiting.

Manchester will rally round, as any great northern community would.  Even the Football Clubs have offered early sympathy.  In despair we need companionship and sympathy but ultimately we need blessing.  Are we only to travel through this world from tragedy to tragedy for it all to end in meaninglessness?  Is there any help from outside this vexed journeying?

As Manchester grew in Victorian England, with people dying like flies in the industrialised, overcrowded squallor so well captured in Elizabeth Gaskell's novel North and South, William Gadsby preached.  Although he was born in Warwickshire, he became deeply embedded in the affections of the poor in Manchester.  This is the more remarkable because he is known today, in as far as he is known, for his strict adherence to the doctrine of election; that only God can save.  This did not stop him addressing all manner of social issues that involved the (apparently) unelect, and nor did it stop the unelect wanting to hear him or being converted under his ministry.  

The mystery of his attraction has eluded most preachers and churches who stick closely to the Biblical evidence that if you're going to get to heaven God will have to do it, not you.  Yet his appeal came because from this providential view he was able to offer even the most desperate person a possibility of sovereign blessing that nature and circumstances and Manchester appeared to have crushed from their lives.  If only God comes in.  And today, using some of Gadsby's words, we pray that to hearts torn rawly by grief and hurt, to whom this world has become a happy home no longer, God may indeed come in;

Blessed are those who mourn. The dear Lord of the house does not merely say they may, or shall be, blessed; but they absolutely are blessed; now blessed, though they may not be able to enjoy the blessings which belong to them . . . Poor, sin-burdened, Satan-hunted, broken-hearted mourners! All things are yours; for ye are Christ's and Christ is God's. Your life is hid with Christ in God, and because he lives ye shall live also. ...In his own time he will, by the power of his Spirit, discover unto them the beauty of his own Person and righteousness; and then they shall see the King in his beauty, (Isa. 33:17) as the Lord their righteousness and strength. Jesus, in his Person, blood, and obedience; in his glorious offices, characters, relationship, names, honours, fullness, love, and loveliness, shall be revealed unto them, by the glorious power and under the divine anointing of God the Holy Ghost; and this shall produce .. a joy unspeakable and full of glory. Then shall their sorrow be turned into joy

Hayley Cropper - Happy Days!

At the National television Awards Julie Hesmondhalgh, who acted Hayley's character, picked up - probably quite rightly - an award for such a dramatic piece of televisual theatre.  It brought a very happy ending.  That's what we all want after all isn't it?

Julie said, "We’re so happy with this storyline. We’d like to thank the charities and everyone who helped us with it. And our wonderful writers and storyliners."

 

Ah.  If only.

 

If only, following miserable illnesses, tortured decisions, and the dark, final curtain of death a real person could pick up an award and spread some happiness!

 

My best friend, as a matter of fact, did.

 

Let us look only to Jesus, the One who began our faith and who makes it perfect. He suffered death on the cross. But he accepted the shame as if it were nothing because of the joy that God put before him. And now he is sitting at the right side of God’s throne.

Joy

Today our Church is rockin' to the sounds of a Caribbean funeral.   If you've never heard Tony Campolo's well-travelled story about a similar experience to this then it is here (and even if you have heard it you'll like hearing it again) . . .

 

Hang in there and you'll hear this:  When you were born you cried and everyone else was happy.  That's not important.  What's important is that when you die, even though everyone else is crying, you're happy.