May 17 Ascension and John 17
Jesus prays for us.(17:6-19) So we may have a physical separation, we are in communion with Jesus Jesus is somewhere else. At the same time, we sing that Jesus abides with us. Jesus exists in eternal life. What does eternal life look like from where you sit? Where do you see love enacted in the lives of your people? God gave us eternal life, and this life is in God's Son.John Calvin taught that Christ truly inaugurated his kingdom only at his ascension to heaven. Calvin believed that as Christ withdrew his bodily presence from his people, he began to rule heaven and earth with more immediate power. Christ’s ascension to heaven is beneficial to our faith in two ways. First, it opened the way into the heavenly kingdom that had been closed after the fall. And second, Christ in heaven has been our constant advocate and intercessor (2.16.16). By the power of his Spirit, Christ is now present with his people all over the world in his Word and in the sacraments.
The ascension was a vital piece of early Christians. Jesus may have died in infamy, but looked, not only is he raised, but t raised in power at the very right hand of god.ascension-is Jesus gone from us forever?The ascension of Jesus into heaven alters our picture of God. We can no longer define God in a way that leaves God completely detached from human experience. So heaven is the very presence with God. . When we turn to God in times of distress or temptation we are not addressing a deity aloof and unfamiliar with our struggles. but also assures us that affliction will not have the final word because it is the risen and ascended Christ who intercedes for us and nothing can separate us from his love (Romans 8:34).(working preacher site?)
If the world is so awful then why pray with it in the frame at all? In the end, God so loved the world. the prayer is filled with the world to give.With the ascension it is not only God with us and God for us but us with God.The prayer of Jesus has a hint of real need, almost desperation, as he fears his disciples off in the world without him there. it feels a bit like a parent sending a child off into the world of college or career. will they make it without me right there?The point of the story is not that when Jesus left His disciples He visibly embarked upon a wonderful journey into space, but that when He left them He entered the side of the created world which was provisionally inaccessible and incomprehensible, that before their eyes He ceased to be[sic] before their eyes. This does not mean, however, that He ceased to be a creature, man.Barth, Karl. "
Rahner -he sits at the right hand of the Father...The absolute Logos shall look at me in eternity with the face of a man.-- on their way to the beatific vision -- to bypass the humanity of Jesus. ...Because [Jesus]wanted to come close to us definitively, he has gone away and has taken us with him...The reason for this is that his Spirit.. fullness of life from the Father, this Spirit is already in us now..." (p.104) In the Ascension, Jesus, the human and divine Anointed One, God's Son, returns home with all that is ours, making it possible for you and me to share God's own life, Godself, the nearness of the Spirit.
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