05/17/2026
Tomorrow (May 17) we will celebrate the Ascension of the Lord in worship, using both Luke 24:44-53 and Acts 1:1-11. Here's a beautiful poem and reflection that Pastor Kerry couldn't fit into the sermon:
Ascension Day
by Malcolm Guite
We saw his light break through the cloud of glory
Whilst we were rooted still in time and place
As earth became a part of Heaven’s story
And heaven opened to his human face.
We saw him go and yet we were not parted
He took us with him to the heart of things
The heart that broke for all the broken-hearted
Is whole and Heaven-centred now, and sings,
Sings in the strength that rises out of weakness,
Sings through the clouds that veil him from our sight,
Whilst we our selves become his clouds of witness
And sing the waning darkness into light,
His light in us, and ours in him concealed,
Which all creation waits to see revealed.
The Cambridge poet, priest, and musician Malcolm Guite on his sonnet for Ascension Day: "The mystery of this feast is the paradox whereby in one sense Christ ‘leaves’ us and is taken away into Heaven, but in another sense he is given to us and to the world in a new and more universal way. His humanity is taken into heaven so our humanity belongs there too, and is in a sense already there with him. "For you have died," says St. Paul, "and your life is hidden with Christ in God." In the ascension Christ’s glory is at once revealed and concealed, and so is ours." See Guite's book Sounding the Seasons: Seventy Sonnets for the Christian Year (2012).
For the other allusions to the ascension, see John 3:13; 6:62; 8:14, 21; 13:3, 33, 36; 14:4–5, 28; 16:5, 10, 17, 28; 20:17; Acts 2:30–33; Romans 8:34; Ephesians 1:20; 4:8–10; I Timothy 3:16; Hebrews 4:14; 1 Peter 3:22.
Found on Journey with Jesus: https://journeywithjesus.net/essays/3570-taken-up-to-heaven-the-ascension-of-jesus
