Time

 I praise the gracious mercy of God, that, dwelling outside time, time has been gifted to us. This thought came to me on Ascension Day, last Thursday. It struck me that just as the Easter season in the church year is constructed to have seven weeks in it;- seven weeks to get to  grips with the mysterious reality of a Risen Christ- so we have ten days between Ascension and Pentecost to absorb that yes, Jesus is not here in earthly form. He really has gone. 

In fact this 'time to absorb the realities of mystery', are played out all over the Christian year, Four weeks for Advent, twelve days for Christmas, absorbing 'our God contracted to a span, Incomprehensibly made man'. ( I love that 'incomprehensibly'- twelve short days to wrestle with 'God....made man'), forty days of Lent, twenty weeks and more in the Trinity season to revisit the Jesus narrative with the full perspective from promise in Advent to completion at Pentecost. And then we start all over again.....

Time- in days, and weeks, months even- to absorb, accept, question, wrestle with, live with, push away, the immensities of the particular season. That's a mercy. So now, in Ascensiontide, I'm trying to looks at it from the point of view of the disciples who were there. Really gone? What next? Is this the end? What does 'the promise of the Father' mean? How can he just leave like this- such an anti-climax!  

The pondering and reflection are good, but are always overtaken by the next revelation- next Sunday, the gift of the Spirit. As so often, questions and reflections are met, not by answers, but by overwhelming grace. But then this prompts another time-consuming question......