Tag Archives: ascension

05/13/10

Ascension Thursday

AscensionThe Twelve Days of Commission conclude today in the Ascension of Jesus. This feast day is one of the Four Great Thursdays of AUR, the other three being Garden Thursday, Declaration Thursday, and Harvest Thursday.

Ascension commemorates the return of Jesus to Heaven between two angels. This imagery places a final seal on the importance of reconciled, complementary virtues to Christian morality by closing Jesus’ time on Earth with symbolism that echoes a consistent theme throughout religion, both Christian and otherwise.

For example, in the book of Numbers, we read that the Word of God came to the Jews from between the two angels on the “Reconciler,” a device which sat atop the Ark of the Covenant.

Medieval Jewish theologian Moses Maimonides explained that these two angels on the Ark represented the punitive and beneficent aspects of God, reconciled in God’s Unity.

This moral message of reconciled virtues can also be seen symbolically in the prophecy of Isaiah that the Anointed returns when the wolf and the lamb, the leopard and the kid, and the lion and the calf lie down together.

In the Christian idiom are repeated lessons in reconciled, complementary virtues: Law and Wisdom reconciled in true religion, Faith and Hope reconciled in Divine Love, the shrewdness of serpents and the innocence of doves reconciled in the attitude of a true Christian.

Justice and mercy, strength and kindness, the arrow and the olive branch: these are the yin and yang of the Abrahamic idiom.  Only together and reconciled are these virtues; apart and partisan, they become the vices of Beast and Babylon, rage and lust, violence and libertinism, authoritarianism and anarchy.

The Reconciling Word of God, manifest in Jesus of Nazareth, returned to Heaven between two angels representing the benevolent and punitive aspects of God, angels who appeared beside him echoing the cherubim of the Ark. It is this image, and its rich spiritual meaning, that we commemorate on Ascension Thursday.

[A version of this homily was published on a previous Ascension Thursday.]

04/29/10

A Day of Faith and Confidence

faithToday is Loyal Thursday, the 4th Thursday after Easter and the Ultimate Thursday of the 12 Days of Trust, the second dozenal of the Ascension Season.

The 12 Days of Trust are a celebration of the clear-minded virtue of Faith (πίστις in Greek, fidelis in Latin), and Loyal Thursday is a day to feast in fidelity to the things we know to be true. Faith is the virtue of steadfast thinking, the antidote of confusion, and with Hope a vital half of the highest Christian virtue of Love.

04/15/10

A Day of Hope and Blessings

hopeJoyful Thursday, the second Thursday after Easter, is the Ultimate of the 12 Days of Blessings, the first of the three dozenals of the Ascension Season.

The 12 Days of Blessings are a celebration of the open-minded virtue of Hope (ἐλπίς in Biblical Greek), and Joyful Thursday is a day to feast in optimistic happiness.

Hope is the virtue of open-minded thinking, the antidote of despair, and with Faith a vital half of the highest Christian virtue of Love.

04/8/10

The Ascension Season – 40 Days of Faith, Hope, Love

[An earlier version of this homily was published here in 2008]

The post-Easter season leading up to Ascension Thursday is a time to celebrate the complementary virtues that are reconciled in the wholeness of the Divine Word.

There are many ways to speak of these complementary virtues: as knowledge and life represented by the Trees of Paradise, or as the serpent and the dove of Jesus’ admonition in the Gospel of Matthew 10:16.  Their absence can also be seen in the Beast and Babylon of the Apocalypse of John.

But one of the most familiar ways to talk about these complementary virtues are as Faith and Hope, which were paired together by Paul in his First Letter to the Corinthians (13:13) under divine Love, or agape.

Continue reading →

12/22/09

Liturgical Calendar Graphic Added

A new graphic depicting the American Unitarian Reform liturgical calendar has been added to AUR’s LC page.  The chart shows the 10-Day Gap, and the rough dates for the Four Great Thursdays: Harvest (or Thanksgiving) Thursday, Garden (or Gethsemane) Thursday, Ascension Thursday, and Declaration Thursday.

Please note, of course, that the seasons from Carnival through Pentecost can vary broadly from year to year.

A rough depiction of the liturgical calender; note that many seasons move from year to year.

05/21/09

Ascension Thursday

The Twelve Days of Commission conclude today in the Ascension of Jesus. This feast day is one of the Four Great Thursdays of AUR, the other three being Garden Thursday, Declaration Thursday, and Thanksgiving Thursday.

Ascension commemorates the return of Jesus to Heaven between two angels. This imagery confirms the centrality of reconciled, complementary virtues to Christian morality by closing Jesus’ time on Earth with symbolism that echoes a consistent theme throughout religion.

In the book of Numbers, we read that the Word of God came to the Jews from between the two angels on the “Reconciler,” a device which sat atop the Ark of the Covenant.

Medieval Jewish theologian Moses Maimonides explained that these two angels on the Ark represented the punitive and beneficent aspects of God, reconciled in God’s Unity.

This moral message of reconciled virtues can also be seen symbolically in the prophecy of Isaiah that the Anointed returns when the wolf and the lamb, the leopard and the kid, and the lion and the calf lie down together.

In the Christian idiom are repeated lessons in reconciled, complementary virtues:  Law and Wisdom reconciled in true religion, Faith and Hope reconciled in Divine Love, the shrewdness of serpents and the innocence of doves reconciled in the attitude of a true Christian.

Justice and mercy, strength and kindness, the arrow and the olive branch: only together and reconciled are these virtues. Apart and partisan, they become the vices of Beast and Babylon, rage and lust, violence and libertinism, authoritarianism and anarchy.

The Reconciling Word of God, manifest in Jesus of Nazareth, returned to Heaven between two angels representing the benevolent and punitive aspects of God, angels who appeared beside him echoing the cherubim of the Ark. It is this image, and its rich spiritual meaning, that we commemorate on Ascension Thursday.

05/10/09

Agape Thursday

loveToday is the First of the 12 Days of Commission, which is the third dozenal of the Easter Season. The 5th Day of Commission, which is the 6th Thursday after Easter, is Agape Thursday.

The 12 Days of Commission are a celebration of the Christian virtue of Love (ἀγάπη or “agape” in Greek), and Agape Thursday is a day to feast in the reconciliation of Faith and Hope as partners in all-embracing Love.

The 12 Days of Commission culminate in Ascension Thursday, the day in which Christ rose to Heaven between two angels as the Christian virtue of Love is lifted by Hope and Faith. Ascension Thursday is one of the Four Great Thursdays of American Unitarian Reform.

03/5/09

Thursday Observance

AUR views itself as a particularly American and Unitarian Christian expression of the universal search for Truth. Just as the earliest Christian communities struggled with the question of Saturday or Sunday worship (the outcome of which is disputed even today by Seventh Day Adventists) and Muslims took Friday as their Day of Gathering, the Reform sought a weekday that honors the particulars of its idiom. Continue reading →