Today is Ascension Day, when we celebrate Jesus’ return to his Father, the completion of his work on earth, and the fact that he is now Lord of all the kingdoms on earth.
Yesterday I listened to Doug Wilson’s third talk from the Auburn Avenue Pastors’ Conference. Less content than the first two of his talks there, but very worth listening to. His main point was that we don’t see, on the ground, a world ruled by Jesus Christ. And then made the point that we are better at applying the reign of Christ to our evangelism than we are to ourselves. When we take the gospel to those who don’t know it, we are (quite) good at remembering that Jesus rules and so we are proclaiming (not persuading into reality) his victory. But when we meet opposition to that evangelistic enterprise, we despair. Instead, (and this was very helpful), whoever brings the opposition to us, we have to hold on to the fact that Jesus is the one who sent it. And so the human opposition we encounter does not disprove Jesus’ victory. Rather it is part of his own working out of his own victory – to his own glory.
That was yesterday. Today we got up to find that there had been a fire in our church building overnight. It started with an electrical fault and burnt slowly all night. The electrical supply comes into the room we use as a crèche. Had that not been a separate room, the entire church interior would be ash. Although the fire burnt all night, the fire brigade estimated that another half an hour would have seen a hole in the roof, a rush of air, and the whole interior reduced to ash. Thank God that neither scenario played out. We have no electrics. We need to rebuild the roof above the crèche. We have soot to clean away throughout the building. But that is all.
Wilson’s talk holds together the ascension we celebrate and the fire we discovered. Whatever caused that fire, we know the one who sent it to us. The Lord Jesus Christ reigns and rules at his Father’s side, ruler of the kings of earth, root of the mustard tree, etc. For his own glory and for the advancement of his kingdom he sent a fire to our building. Yes there will be a lot of time spent, and a fair bit of money too, sorting things out. But praise to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ that this is not a world out of control where fires rage with no-one to control them. Instead this is a world under God’s sovereign control, now ruled by his Son whom he appointed heir of all things. And so instead of instilling despair, the flames and smoke can remind us of the presence of the One who dwells in the bush. He is present, and reigns as he does so.
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