A Thanksgiving for Ascension

We give you thanks and praise because you sent your Son, conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, into the mess and poverty of this beautiful yet scarred world, to be born, the son of a Jewish girl and step-son of a man who worked with his hands. He grew up with family and friends, and except for his total obedience to your will, he was just like us.

But his love for you, and for the poor and outcast, meant he was too good for the powers of this world. So he was rejected, beaten, and lifted on a cross to die.

But in your love and the power of the Spirit, you lifted him even higher. After diving to the depths of the dead, he was raised to life and then lifted into the heavens.

And now, at your right hand, carrying the scars of our sin and the weaknesses of our humanity, yet shining with the glory of heaven - he is our eternal witness in heaven. He pleads for us with his Father, and breathes out his Spirit to fill us with  love, hope, and an ache for heaven. A human being sits on the holiest throne, joined to us by flesh and blood. Calling us his sisters and brothers, he has made us members of the heavenly Kingdom, and calls us to be his family, and eat with him in his kingdom forever.