Ascension Generosity

Hugh MacLennan's Barometer Rising (1941) tells the story of the after-effects of the explosion of a munitions ship in Halifax harbor in 1917. Half of the city was destroyed. Having read the novel for grade nine literature, a week spent in Halifax some years ago was a splendid opportunity to see if there were any historical monuments referring to the event. We found it.

To this very day you can see a fragment of that explosion, embedded inside the entry to the oldest Anglican Church in Canada in the Halifax's downtown, and an "explosion window" inside its west wall. These are the accidental memorabilia for which the church is notable, as are the crypts within which contain the remains of illustrious British colonials. Like many other churches in North America, however, it also has affixed on pews, windows, and walls numerous name plates bearing constant witness to Mr. and Mrs. So and So's donations to this historic church. Ascension Day moved me to reflect on this curious juxtaposition of earthly generosity in a space dedicated to the the mighty acts of heaven.

Christ's ascension to the right hand of God the Father teaches us that heaven rules the earth, and that it does so through the merits of Jesus Christ. Christian worship space does so uniquely: its unique configuration and symbols bears constant testimony that Christ submits all things to the glory of God the Father, and that he will come again to judge the living and the dead. Name plates proclaiming human generosity in Christian worship space undermine that sovereignty, contradict the Word with words, deny heaven's decisive role and exalt earthly human deeds.

When Christ ascended into heaven, Paul writes the Ephesians (4:1-13), he gave gifts to the church to declare the glory of God and his Christ. Whether you have the opportunity to visit St. Paul's in downtown Halifax, or any other historic church, enjoy its testimonies to history. May the name plates on liturgical furniture move you to acknowledge that no one but God is gracious enough to deserve constant recognition for gifts we have received from him. Only heaven's generosity merits Name recognition in the church and in all the places that extend its ministry, including schools for training ministers of the Gospel.

WAITING FOR OUR RESURRECTION ON THE NEW EARTH

“In a world of suffering, we cannot afford the luxury of waiting for the kingdom to come in some heaven light-years away.” Thus Sylvia Keesmaat begins her concluding paragraph in a recent Banner (“The Kingdom. On Earth or in Heaven?” April 2011).

Really?

The apostle Paul would have, if possible, completed Christ’s sufferings in his own body. That luxury was denied him; but suffering was not. Paul’s post-Easter Lenten suffering made him strong because of his own weakness (2 Cor. 12:8-10). To argue that Christians deny the suffering that is proper to their pilgrimage on this earth—awaiting the new earth in which righteousness dwells and where tears will not flow down the dirty faces of children rummaging through garbage dumps—undermines fundamental biblical theological themes: waiting for the rest that remains (Heb. 4:8-11), waiting for God to define the kairos of Christ’s coming again, waiting for the gift of an incorruptible body driven by a purified soul.

Waiting is the luxury our Christian pilgrimage cannot do without, especially in a world of suffering, because it places the focus on God. Keesmaat would place it on the human ability to change our condition. Just get rid of heaven.

Keesmaat is correct, of course, when she argues that the goal of the Christian life is a new earth. But erasing heaven from our activist souls would also rid us of everything that makes life on earth a joyful reality, especially in a world of suffering. Who defines the suffering? The justice? The solutions to poverty? Who determines the best economic system for sensitive human development? And, what is the role of the church in all this? According to Scripture, heaven alone, no matter what we think (Prov. 16:1-9).

An earth bereft of heaven’s authority will turn to norms defined by some ideological elite determined to shape the present form of joy and justice from the point of view of an already defined future. Is Jesus’ return from heaven the kairos moment of total transformation or is the kairos moment a conglomeration of human apperceptions of Christ’s presence “here” or “there” on the earth (Mark 13:21)?

Keesmaat writes: “Jesus made it clear that where he is, the kingdom brings healing, forgiveness, and hope.” Absolutely correct! According to the scriptures, and as confessed by Christians throughout the centuries, however, Jesus has ascended and sits at the right hand of God the Father. Thus, healing, forgiveness, and hope come from heaven, not from well-meaning human acts of mercy and compassion performed by people of all kinds of religious persuasions.

Faith in Christ’s cross and resurrection brings one to “the beginning” of an eternal joy which “I already now experience in my heart” so that “after this life I will have perfect blessedness such as no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no human heart has ever imagined: a blessedness in which to praise God eternally” (Lord’s Day 22, QA 58).

Through faith in Christ this too is the beginning of that joy, here—and to be continued in the presence of God on the new earth, in the New Jerusalem—for the grieving in El Salvador, the single mother in Philadelphia, and those kids scrounging a life on the garbage dumps.

In the meantime we have the luxury of self-denial, of waiting for Christ to bring the suffering—spiritual and physical—to an end.