Now today we are celebrating Ascension Day which fell three days ago on Thursday, which happened forty days after the resurrection. Now, if you would, I’d like us to consider the ascension as the essential ‘third movement’ of the completion of Jesus’ work – death on the cross, resurrection, and ascension.

Today is the last in our little series on discipleship. This week, we look at you and me as individuals and how we get to be an important and functional part of this unique thing we call the Church.

So in this season of new life, we continue to look at what it means to be disciples of Jesus. Last week we looked at the first part of Peter’s letter to the church where he establishes our distinct identity as a Holy People, a Royal Priesthood, as a people whose primary loyalty is to Jesus.  He now turns to the subject of our relationship to the non-Christian world we live in.

Last week we spoke about how the Holy Trinity; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, opens up wide the lives of we disciples.  We believe in one God, they are fully unified.  This week we look at what might happen in the life of the church if we were unified in the same way that God is unified.

On the same day that Jesus was mightily raised from the dead, he breathed the Holy Spirit, the Holy Wind, into his disciples and telling them they will be sent by Jesus in the same way he was sent by the Father.

Shortly we will receive the Eucharist, the body of Christ who is the bread of life, a true and real symbol of forgiveness and a new beginning. Let this be the moment when we put it all behind us and we allow Jesus to breathe his Spirit on us and say to each one of us, “Peace be with you…Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Every day, we just remain in Jesus in this newness of life brought about by the resurrection we celebrate this evening.  Trusting in his love and forgiveness.  Hanging out with him all the time.  Now, not just later in heaven.  Now.  Jesus is risen and the Kingdom of God is truly among us.  Alleluia! 

All these questions.

But the Good Friday message is always the same and the biggest of all the questions remains the same. What does it mean when we say that Jesus died for us on the cross?

Matthew leaves out talk of victory to stress humility.  Jesus, in his entry into Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives rides a humble donkey.  Triumphant Kings and warriors rode war horses, didn’t they?  The donkey is absurd, isn’t it?   

Then we come to a moment of emotional intensity unmatched in the New Testament.  Jesus sees Mary crying and he begins to weep himself. Jesus cries with Mary. What a powerful example of Jesus’ compassion and what a testament to his fullest embodiment of the human emotional life.

The religious leaders even turn against the now-sighted man with disgust that he, a sinner, would deign to tell them how to think about Jesus. You can almost smell the self-righteousness of these affronted religious types. We know them in our own time. They often get caught offending in just the way they accuse others of sinning.

Time and again we see the witness of an individual, in this case the Samaritan woman at the well, lead to a whole group believing in Christ.  Jesus stays in the village for two days.  The people are first drawn to listen to Jesus by her witness, then converted by Christ himself. 

In terms of humans being in control of their own lives, of course the cross is a moment of profound humiliation and defeat. But in John, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension are collapsed into a single movement of absolute divine control or God being sovereign and in control of everything.

These messianic temptations were the devil’s ways of tempting Jesus to bypass the cross, to satisfy the expectations of the Jews and bring down the fire of heaven on the Romans. To be a hero. To be obedient to someone other than God and adopt the role of the Son and King of Kings without being the suffering servant prophesied in Isaiah.

On the mountain top, the divinity of Christ is revealed to them. After being literally petrified with fear, they are woken by the touch of Jesus, a touch from the King of kings.   The word used to describe Jesus’ dazzling appearance is the same as that used to describe lightning. The disciples are woken out of their ignorance, their sleeping, to see the light of Christ.

This week's continues the Sermon on the Mount and follows the Beatitude and Jesus teachings on salt and light and to avoid the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. It contains no parables or miracle narratives, only straightforward teaching: do this.

When Jesus says he will not abolish, he clearly does not mean he will not re-interpret.  Many times Jesus reinterprets Old Testament Scripture, particularly in the Sermon on the Mount, usually beginning with something like … "You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times ... but I say to you."

Now last week’s gospel says that Jesus began his ministry by urging people to repent. To turn away from worldly selfishness because the Kingdom was near. So, these blessing follow all those who would follow and centre their lives on Jesus who is the embodiment of this new Kingdom of Heaven.

Now at the heart of all of Paul’s letters is the cross of our Lord Jesus. In fact it is so central to Paul’s teaching that he wrote in the very next chapter of this letter to the Corinthians that “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2)

When Jesus asks us, ‘what are you looking for?’ he’s asking if we are ready to be disciples. If we are looking for comfort, or security, or some assurance that we are right, we might be looking in the wrong direction. If we are looking for acceptance or affirmation from others that we are ‘good people’, we might not be ready to ask where Jesus lives.