The Seventh Sunday of Easter - May 12

Here in Heaven
John17:20-26

The collect appointed for this day relates to the fact that, in times past, this Sunday would have been identified as being in Ascensiontide. It would have even been called the Sunday after Ascension Day. This past Thursday was Ascension Day. It always falls 40 days into the great 50 days of Easter. It commemorates the event recounted in Scripture when Jesus, after his resurrection and appearances to the disciples, left their sight and “ascended into heaven.”

The collect says that Jesus has been exalted with great triumph to God’s kingdom in heaven. And we pray that God will exalt us to that same place where Jesus has gone before.

The collect (and much of the hymnody appropriate for Ascensiontide) paints a picture of Jesus going away to heaven. Heaven is someplace else, away from here. And in the collect we pray that perhaps someday, somehow, by God’s grace we can join Jesus there.

 In the adult Sunday School class we’ve been studying N. T. Wright’s book, Surprised by Hope. We’re using a DVD with Bishop Wright talking about the points in his book. And I can’t help but think about the ascension in light of Bishop Wright’s teaching. He talks a lot about heaven. And he talks a lot about heaven not being some other place, away from earth. Heaven and earth, he says, are the two spheres of God’s activity and they are intertwined, not separate. I can see the fingers of his two hands intertwined as he talks about it. Heaven is here, intertwined with earth. A different way of being. A different way of seeing. But not a different place.

In a sense the collect appointed for Ascension Day itself makes this same point. It says Jesus ascended far above, or beyond, all heavens so that he might fill all things. He has not so much gone away, as become more fully present. By his ascension, Jesus brings the glory of heaven to all things.

To dwell in heaven is to experience God’s glory here, to be governed by God’s love here. And the closer we are to Jesus in our lives, the more fully we dwell in heaven. Here. That’s our Ascension prayer. Not that we may someday be launched off to heaven and rejoin Jesus there. But that we might share in Jesus’ presence and glory here. The presence and glory of Jesus that now fills all things.

That’s our prayer in today’s collect. And that’s Jesus’ prayer for us as we heard today in John’s Gospel. The reading from John appointed from today is from a section of John often called Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer. These are Jesus’ words after the Last Supper… his prayer on behalf of his disciples and the world before his crucifixion.

One commentator noted that Jesus’ prayer is meant to be overheard. He is teaching as well as praying. These words express his and God’s desires, but he also wants the disciples to know what he desires for them. And it is not just the disciples who are meant to overhear. We are, too. And he is praying for us. He prays for those gathered around him and all those who will come to know him through their words. That’s us.

He prays that we may be given everything that God, the father gave him.

He prays that we may be one with God just as fully as he, Jesus, was one with God during his earthly life. This prayer for oneness is not a prayer for Christian unity (although that’s a good thing), it is a prayer that we may be citizens of heaven here on earth. Just as Jesus was. It is a prayer that we may be with Jesus now, here, and experience his glory.

Jesus is here. Heaven is here. Jesus prays that we may be with him in heaven. Here.