Risen, ascended, glorified

Choir ‘Let all the world in every corner sing’ (setting by RV Williams)

Welcome to Sunday Worship from Hoddinott Hall in Cardiff, part of the wider Wales Millenium Centre and home to the National Chorus of Wales. We’ve just heard them singing Vaughan William’s setting of George Herbert’s hymn, ‘Let all the world in every corner sing’.

They will be leading our music throughout this service (and as someone who regularly attends concerts in the Hoddinott Hall, I know that we are in for a real treat.)

My name is Stephen Wigley. I’m a Methodist minister based in Cardiff and sharing in this service I’ll be joined by my colleague Rev Cathy Gale, the Superintendent minister of the Cardiff Methodist Circuit; indeed, it’s Cathy who will now lead us in our opening prayers.

Let us pray

Lord, our God, King of heaven,

all glory and power belong to you.

Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, ascended Lord,

all glory and power belong to you.

Holy Spirit, witness that Jesus is alive,

all glory and power belong to you.

Great God, glorious and holy, we praise you

for all that brings heaven to earth for us –

for word and sacrament,

for faithful Christians past and present,

for fellowship within and beyond the Church,

and for times of deep awareness that Jesus is still with us.

All glory and power belong to you, our Lord and our God. Amen.

Almighty God, forgive us that we so often confine our attention to this world and its needs, and we forget the bigger picture, forget your all-embracing love and power.

Forgive us when we attempt to hold you for ourselves

and neglect to share your love with others.

Forgive us for our poor discipleship

and our unwillingness to let you shine in our lives.

Give us a vision of your glory that inspires us to be your servants,

channels of your grace to others.

Help us to live our lives for your glory.

We ask this in the name of Jesus, who taught us when we pray to say …

Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses, 

as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, 

the power, and the glory, 

forever and ever. Amen.

Today is the Sunday after Ascension, that momentous day in the Church calendar which comes 40 days after Easter and marks the moment when the Risen Jesus bids farewell to his disciples. They are still coming to terms with his resurrection from the dead so Jesus opens their minds to understand the scriptures and tells them to stay in Jerusalem until they’ve been ‘clothed with power from on high’. He blesses them, and while blessing withdraws to be ‘carried up to heaven’.

We shall hear two accounts of these events as told at the very end of Luke’s Gospel and then as picked up at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles. These two accounts come together as a kind of hinge holding the two parts of the story of Jesus together. In Luke’s Gospel we see the account of all that Jesus said and did, in his physical body on earth, to proclaim the Gospel until his death and resurrection in Jerusalem. Then in the Acts of the Apostles we hear how, as the risen body of Jesus ascends to be with his Father in heaven, the Holy Spirit comes as promised upon the disciples at Pentecost, enabling them to continue Jesus’ ministry as his ‘spiritual body’ on earth.

Taken together these accounts of Jesus’ ascension envisage a kind of twofold movement; first ‘heavenwards’ as the risen Jesus ascends to be with his Father in heaven; but also back ‘down to earth’ as his revitalised disciples seek to continue their ministry in Jesus’ name. In our service this morning we’re going to delve a little more into those two movements, the one heavenwards and the other down to earth, and see how both are crucial to Christian faith.

But first we hear a reading of the Psalm appointed for today, Psalm 47, which like George Herbert’s hymn encourages us to ‘sing praises to God’ who is ‘the King of all the earth’.

Psalm 47

Clap your hands, all you peoples;

shout to God with loud songs of joy.

For the LORD, the Most High, is awesome,

a great king over all the earth.

He subdued peoples under us,

and nations under our feet.

He chose our heritage for us,

the pride of Jacob whom he loves.

God has gone up with a shout,

the LORD with the sound of a trumpet.

Sing praises to God, sing praises;

sing praises to our King, sing praises.

For God is the king of all the earth;

sing praises with a psalm.

God is king over the nations;

God sits on his holy throne.

The princes of the peoples gather

as the people of the God of Abraham.

For the shields of the earth belong to God;

he is highly exalted.

Hymn ‘Christ whose glory fills the skies’ (C Wesley)

That was Charles Wesley’s hymn ‘Christ whose glory fills the skies.’

Our next reading is the account of Jesus’ farewell and ascension as it is told at the very end of Luke’s Gospel, in chapter 24.

Then [Jesus] said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.You are witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised, so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.

Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple blessing God.

There’s an old-fashioned phrase sometimes used to describe someone’s passing, that he or she has ‘gone to glory’. It carries the sense that whoever has died has kept the faith and can now anticipate meeting God ‘face to face’. It’s part of what St. Paul describes as being changed from ‘one degree of glory to another’ and which Charles Wesley sets out in the closing verse of his great hymn ‘Love divine’; ‘changed from glory into glory, till in heaven we take our place’.

Glory is a key theme in the Bible, and in the life and ministry of Jesus, especially as it’s told in John’s Gospel. However more recently, and perhaps mindful of its complex relationship with power, the Church can appear a little uncomfortable with it. The 20th century Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar was one who considered that, in its understandable concern to make the Gospel message relevant and meaningful to the world, the Church had lost some of its focus on the Glory of God. In his own work he sought to redress the balance. The first part of his great trilogy was entitled ‘the Glory of the Lord’ and set out his attempt to recover a sense of the joy and beauty of God, in particular an attempt to interpret the Bible from the perspective of Glory.

One response to such a challenge could be a renewed focus on worship and sacrament, on the importance of offering our very best in the service of God. But it would be a mistake to focus on glory purely in terms of aesthetics, of fine vestments, splendid liturgies and cathedral-like churches which lift our eyes to the heavens. After all, that was not the experience of Jesus in his earthly ministry and when challenged by the impact of fine buildings in Jerusalem, his response was to say that it wouldn’t be long before they all came tumbling down.

Jesus’ ascension to be with his Father marks the vindication of all he’d undergone throughout his ministry on earth; not just the times of acclamation and praise with the disciples and crowds, but also in the quiet moments of disappointment and desolation. Indeed in John’s Gospel it is precisely as Judas leaves the Last Supper in the Upper Room to betray him that Jesus says ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified and God has been glorified in him.’

To give God the glory is not simply about the aesthetics of worship; it can be found in the way Jesus’ disciples discover the strength needed to take up their own Cross to follow him, the way they seek to love their fellow disciples as Jesus first loved them, and the way they offer their gifts and graces to be used in service of Christ’s Church. It’s not the glory of being raised into the heavens; it’s the glory which focuses instead on the care for God’s world and the people within it.

That’s the glory which Jesus takes with him to his Father. That’s the glory to which his disciples are called, as we shall explore in the next part of our service. But for now we continue with George Bourne’s hymn, ‘Lord enthroned in heavenly splendour’ and its triumphal closing line, ‘Alleluia! Alleluia! Risen, ascended glorified.’

Hymn ‘Lord enthroned in heavenly splendour’ (Bourne)

Our final reading picks up the account of Jesus’ Ascension as it is told right at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, in Chapter 1

In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait there for the promise of the Father.

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing into heaven?’ Whenever I read this passage, I am taken back to my first appointment in Swansea. Outside the local Baptist Church was a Wayside Pulpit notice-board, and I was often held up in the traffic and given good time to read it. There were various messages, some of which could be quite cheesy; but one I remember distinctly raised a similar question; ‘Is Christianity too heavenly minded to be any earthly good?

The image of Jesus addressing his disciples before ascending to be with his Father with his feet in the clouds, would appear to raise just this question. I can remember on past holidays to Italy seeing various depictions of the Ascension by Raphael and Perugino, for example; pretty and colourful they are, yet they nevertheless give the impression that what is happening up in the clouds in heaven remains very far removed from events and people down on earth.

But as we’ve been exploring in this service, it may actually be the opposite which is true; that it’s the physical body of Jesus being ‘raised’ into heaven which allows and creates the space for his followers to become the spiritual body of Christ on earth, alive and at work in the power of his Spirit. After all, that’s what the final message of Jesus is to his disciples, that they are to wait in Jerusalem until they’ve been clothed with fire from above.

That’s what happens when the Holy Spirit comes as a mighty wind and in tongues of fire on the day of Pentecost, which Christians will celebrate next Sunday. It’s not just that Peter and his fellow disciples find themselves saying and doing precisely those things which they were too scared to do when the earthly Jesus was still with them; it’s that with the inspiration of others like Paul, they find themselves being led to proclaim and live out the Gospel in communities right across the Mediterranean world. The Ascension of Jesus into heaven, enables the space for the Apostles to bring the Church of Christ into life on earth, as the community which shares his life and reveals his love to the world.

And ultimately, that reveals something too about the Glory of God. There’s a famous saying of one of the early Church Fathers, Bishop Irenaeus of Lyons, that ‘the Glory of God is a human being fully alive’. As we reflect on the story of the Ascension, we’re reminded that ‘going to glory’ is not just about what happens when Jesus goes to be with his Father; it’s about how our lives can be set alight in the power of the Spirit to become part of his risen Body, alive and at work in the world.

This theme, of the Glory of God being revealed in loving service, is one which is picked up in our next hymn; ‘Brother, sister, let me serve you, let me be as Christ to you…’

Hymn ‘Brother sister let me serve you’ (R Gillard)

Glimpse of God’s spirit at work in Trinity Centre Cardiff

Cathy: This service comes from Hoddinott Hall in the Millennium Centre, set in the transformed Cardiff Bay area. Just a couple of miles away, another part of the city is also changing: Adamsdown. Here we find another story of death and new life in the work of the Trinity Centre.

Based in a refurbished former Methodist Church, the Centre has become a hub for groups and organisations serving the local community. Its activities range from arts, crafts and wellbeing sessions to shared cooking, eating, and providing safe, welcoming spaces where families and children can relax, have fun, and make new friends.

I’d like to introduce Laura Evans, a member of the Executive Body overseeing the Trinity Centre, a project of the Methodist Church in Cardiff. Laura grew up worshipping with her parents in the Trinity congregation, which stopped meeting over a decade ago. Yet the work that began in the building—initially supporting people seeking refuge and asylum—has continued to grow into a much broader mission.

Laura, tell us what has been happening at Trinity recently.

Laura: The Trinity building had become run down and dilapidated over a number of years. We were talking about being a place of welcome, but the whole outlook of the building said the opposite. And yet people gathered there. People felt safe there. So, we began to look at how we could refurbish the large, Grade II listed church in a way that said to both the people who used it and the surrounding community that they were loved and valued, by God and by us.

Cathy: So, how did you achieve that? Grade II listed buildings are not easy to refurbish!

Laura: No, indeed. A lot of work was done by some very committed people to apply for grants, and fundraise generally and we were blessed by the response of a number of funders so that a year ago we relaunched a “resurrected” Centre which is now open and welcoming and fit for purpose.

Cathy: And what has been the response?

Laura: If I can share with you what happened at our Opening Event, which was basically an open house type of thing. We planned for 100 people and 400 came! All kinds of people – many from the refugee and asylum seeking community who wanted to see how things had changed and who looked forward to coming back into the Centre with their groups; but also new people from the local community who were just curious to find out what the inside of this building was like – no one had been curious when the outside consisted of two big wooden doors, shutting everyone out! But now we are glass fronted with plants in the windows and the building draws you in. And then there were church people, many of whom had been distressed when their congregation had stopped meeting there, but now saw this new life of service in the place they loved.

Cathy: And a year on, are things still good?

Laura: So good, Cathy! The established groups have come back to meet at Trinity. But there are now new things as well – a women’s space on a Friday called Sisterhood Café, and a free Community Lunch on a Tuesday called Welcome Table, and all these are enabled by a band of volunteers from different sectors of the society, a wonderful multi-ethnic, multi-faith group. There’s always a lot of laughter and noise there. It is the love of Christ in action.

Chorus Motet ‘Ubi caritas’ (Duruflé)

That was Maurice Duruflé’s motet ‘Ubi Caritas’; Where charity and love are, God is there’

Let us pray,

Thank you, Lord, for your Word and the stories the Bible tells us of what happened after you were risen and ascended, how your followers began to live out their commitment to you without you physically present with them.

Thank you for the stories of how they overcame fear and doubt and began to live boldly and openly sharing your love with others.

Thank you that, through their actions and example, others came to know about you and the small movement grew as lives were changed and transformed by your grace.

Help us, as your followers today, to reflect your glory as they did. Help us to look for opportunities to do good, to care for those who struggle from day to day.

Help us to reach out to those close to us – those we meet as we go about our daily business. May we seek to help as much as we can, to brighten the lives of others and show them appreciation.

And may we reach out further in prayer and in action to support those across the world who are suffering from the effects of war, violent action, climate change or injustice.

Lord Jesus, your Holy Spirit empowers us to continue your work of love and care. May we let our light shine in whatever ways we can, both big and small.

We ask this in your name, Lord, Amen

 Hymn ‘Lord thy church on earth is seeking…’ (H Sherlock)

That was the National Chorus of Wales singing Hugh Sherlock’s hymn, ‘Lord thy Church on earth is seeking thy renewal from above’. We thank you for joining us in this service from the Hoddinott Hall in Cardiff; and now may we close with an Ascensiontide blessing.

(May the joy of the risen and ascended Lord

fill our hearts and homes,

guiding our steps toward the life of glory

prepared for those who love him)

And may the Blessing of God,

the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,

rest upon us and remain with us,

evermore, Amen.