Ascending Love

Let us go back, back to the beginning, right after the time they have been called by the Master. Let us attempt to place ourselves in their sandals. Let us imagine standing among them, thinking their thoughts and feeling their feelings.

We have fallen in love. We have encountered .... Jesus of Nazareth. Even the air around Him is sanctified .... sweeter than anything we have known .... perhaps like the atmosphere of pure Eden. Yes, we had met holy people before. We have known their lightness of being. Even to pray near to them is to be carried along on a current of grace bringing us closer to Heaven. But that was nothing compared to this. His countenance gives off light. His every motion is gracious and beautiful. And His words .... where else would you seek to be? For He alone has the words of life .... and eternal life.

Following Him, being with Him day after day, the world and all that is in it and beyond it seemed to open before us. We did not wonder why men from all over the Levant came to see Him, to meet with Him if they could. Many sought to test Him, for they themselves were burning through the great questions of life: What do the Scriptures mean in their essence? What must I do to be saved? And .... may I follow you? To each He gives words that are life-giving.

We do not balk when Brother Andrew declares to Simon Peter,

Yes, the Christ. We all could feel it: the Christ, the One Who Is Coming into the World, the Desire of the Everlasting Hills.

We are not surprised that many whom He has received find His words to be challenging. Isn't that in the nature of new life? Don't we say that we labor to be born? To inherit eternal life, to be granted the gift of salvation, to be offered a whole new, even Divine, life .... all of these things presuppose crisis. A new life is never born from an old one without crisis. What does the Apostle Paul say? The old man must die! Now, there is crisis: death to the old self so that a new being might be born.

But to move forward, to move on to this burning point, to enter this crucible, requires great courage .... and trust .... trust in the Master, Who tells us not to hesitate in picking up a cross.

A crisis indeed does come .... but a much greater crisis than ever we had expected .... or could ever imagine. For the One we trusted to be the Son of God, Who was transfigured into light before our eyes, Who received the approbation of God the Father — "This Is My Beloved Son" .... this One is now arrested and stripped like a helpless beggar! The One Who had commanded the winds and seas before our very eyes is now knocked about like a helpless dog! The One Who healed the blind and lame now sees His own flesh cut to ribbons! And the One Who raised the dead now dies on an ignominious Cross.

And we? We have all run .... all but the One He loved and His Mother and some of the women. We run and run and run, our minds racing. We do not know where to go. We do not know who or what we have become. All we know is .... all is lost. And the Beloved, the Master, the Lord .... is dead. Let us sit on the ground, therefore, and cover ourselves with ashes and die for a wont to live.

Finally, we seek each other's company and return to the upper room. What else could we do? Where else could we go? Who could we speak to? What could we say? Either you were there with us ..... or you were not. Either you got it .... or you didn't. What is left to say .... to anyone else? For us, there is no other world that makes sense. And we have no heart to hear the dull words and wandering minds of other men.

Then, suddenly, an astonishing message reaches us. He did not die! John and Peter had entered the tomb and found it to be empty! Others told us that they walked with Him on the Emmaus Road and did not even know Who it was .... until they had stopped to sup with Him and to break bread with Him. Word is now coming in from every side: He did not die! Or He has risen! And our hearts are renewed! For He is the Lord of Life .... as we had thought! He is the True and Only Son of God .... as we believed!

Soon, all of us meet with Him again. It were as if a shattered world, a vast field of ruin, had miraculously been brought up into a whirlwind and reassembled before our eyes. All and everything have been restored! All is as it was. No, .... far better than that. For now all things are surer and clearer and deeper and stronger. For now He speaks to us no longer in shadows and parables and riddles but plainly and directly. All of us now have ears to hear and eyes to see. And soon we realize that He has granted us the wish that we had long cherished: He unlocks the Scriptures to us .... all of them. The meaning of Heaven and Earth is laid before us. No. This is nothing like what we had known before, but far higher and broader and deeper ..... and unto Heaven's heights.

Indeed, for us Heaven truly has come to Earth. And finally we know peace. What could possibly disturb this perfection now? Who could harm us here in the brotherhood of God? Truly, we had reentered Eden holding conversation with God in the cool of the day (Gen 3:8) but now without shame. For He has approved us. He has received us. He has loved us.

Then, sad news is slowly revealed. We learn that this is not to last. We learn that He must depart from us. This all and always, which we had tasted over a span of forty days, now must end, this paradise, which nearly was ours.

We learn that the Beloved must depart. Will we ever see Him again? He promises He will always be with us .... even to end of the age. But today all we can think of is His departing .... and our desolation and our loss and and our emptiness.

For we, each one of us, He had filled to the full as He revealed the depths of His Soul and the breadth of His Mind to each one of us. The loss now is so much greater than the loss before. For in these days of Heaven, He had loved us completely and openly with a love like no other we shall ever know. It had lifted us to the highest heights. It had filled every part of our minds and souls and bodies with His light. It had enfolded us in a feeling of well-being such that we knew what life truly was .... and perceiving that we had never been fully alive before now.

What remains is this love and our complete trust and confidence in it. The One Who rules the winds and waves truly is also the Master of all life. The One Who raises the dead truly is also the Victor over death. And the One Who promised that He will always be with us now reveals a mysterious dwelling where each of us will have a place — a place near to Him, a place in His Heart, a place that can never be moved, which is sure and safe:

We set our eyes upon Him as now He must return, ascending upward, to this mysterious dwelling. We see the Master of All go to His rightful place. And as He goes, we behold His eyes of love and approval.

And in this, we have crossed a line which we shall never transgress. Every day of our lives now, we commit to set our hearts on those eyes and upon that love. We have come to see — in all we have been through and in all we have learned — that in the end it is His love which alone matters. Really, this is all there is: His love and all that it means. Truly, nothing else will last. And at our final hour and taking our last breath, we will fix our hearts upon those eyes and upon that love knowing that soon we will be with Him. For where He goes we know, and the way we know, for He has told us:

And in His Father's House are many mansions. If this were not so, He would have told us.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.   Amen.