Sunday 24th May 2020

The Sunday after Ascension Day

You can find all of our latest information, Edith's reflection for this Sunday, our Thursday "Worship for all Generations" and much more by clicking on the following link to our facebook page - Leesfield Parish

This is bank holiday weekend, and it should be the beginning of the half term holiday for schools. Many of you probably had holidays booked, other trips planned or were looking forward to particular events. So there is a good deal of disappointment around. The past few weeks have been tough for many, and the idea of a holiday is very attractive. In this strange time some people have found themselves much less busy than usual (with possibly concern over financial future) while others have been more busy –coping with tasks made more complex by the restrictions. Schools have been open to a small group of children for particular reasons, and staff have worked through what should have been the Easter break and will be working through this week too. Today I want to encourage everyone to find some time just for themselves, time to spend relaxing or doing something that genuinely brings you joy. The word holiday comes from holy day. To care for ourselves is holy – it is recognising that, as I spoke about a few weeks ago, Jesus came so we can have life in abundance. Or as another writer put it “self-care is never selfish, it is stewardship of the only gift we have”   We can’t have a holiday, but we can have a holy day!
Edith 

Our first hymn - Morning has Broken - 

Today's Bible Reading -

Today is the Sunday after Ascension Day and we are in the waiting time between the Ascension and Pentecost. In today’s gospel passage (taken from just before the crucifixion) we hear Jesus praying for His disciples, asking God to give eternal life not just to Jesus but also to his people. Today we celebrate Jesus’ rising to the Father, and await the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, and consider what all that means for us, here, today. We are approaching the end of the Easter season. If you take the time to read the accounts of Jesus’ death, Resurrection and Ascension in all four of the gospels and in the book of Acts, you will find many differences in the accounts. However all the New Testament  writers was believed that soon after the crucifixion, Jesus had appeared repeatedly, unpredictably, and mysteriously to many people. And those to whom He appeared became overwhelmingly convinced that God had raised Him to a new life, a life quite different from the old, yet one in which his essential self, his "Jesus-ness" was intact. But then the resurrection appearances ceased, and those gospels that give us an Ascension story suggest why. For the most striking thing about all those stories is how very final they all are. The narrative in Acts is typical - short, unembroidered, even stark - but it clearly makes the point that Jesus’s time on earth in a visible body was over. No-one reading it would ever expect to see Jesus again in this world. Despite that, the writers of the NT, mostly writing long after the crucifixion, having never seen Jesus either in the flesh or in his resurrection body, nevertheless found they experienced Him as a vivid living presence. Jesus, they were convinced, was somehow still alive, and was with them. And two thousand years later, that is still the experience of many ordinary Christians of today.  So clearly, though the ascension may have marked the end of Jesus’s appearances, it did not mark the end of Jesus. His life was changed but not taken away. He was "alive for ever". On Easter Day, God poured new life into Jesus, a life quite different from his old one, a life like God‘s, overflowing with love and strength and glory, a life that would last as long as God himself. And filled with the glory of this new life, Jesus showed himself to His disciples until they were convinced that God had indeed raised Him. Finally, when they were convinced at last, God could move on. Perhaps at Jesus’s last appearance, His disciples had a vision of him taken up into the glory of God. Whatever actually happened, though they saw Him no more, they continued to be aware of Him as a living presence alongside them. And Christians since then have also known His presence with them, loving and guiding them, and strengthening them for the work of spreading God‘s kingdom. Today, then, we hold on to Jesus’ prayer for His people, for us, and pledge ourselves anew to making His living presence known to those around us. 

Our second hymn - How Great Thou Art -

And our final hymn for today - Jubilate -