Clay in the Hands

Here it is Monday and I am reflecting on my journey last week and looking forward to where the path will lead this week.  Yesterday, we had a great morning in worship.  We celebrated with the graduating seniors in our church, we heard the story of one of our senior adults and we praised our ascended savior.

We talked about the fact that Jesus died, but was not held in the grave.  He spent forty days with his disciples, giving them last minute instructions before breaking all bounds with this natural world and physically ascending into the clouds and out of sight.

For us today, we don’t understand how this was possible.  But really, neither did the disciples on that day.  Acts 1 tells us that they just stood there in amazement – I am guessing with their mouths open.  Two angels finally had to show up and tell them to move it along.

There are elements of our theology that may not make sense in this world but it does not make them any less true or real.

The point I take from this story in Acts is that Jesus proves, yet one more time, that he is not bound by this world.  He can come and go as he chooses.  That is the God we serve.  We simply must have faith and believe.

I ran across a poem by Alexander Pope entitled, An Essay On Man, in my reading this morning that may help us in this area.  Here is an excerpt:

To him no high, no low, no great, no small—
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all….
All nature is but art, unknown to thee: 
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see:
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good.

We have to remember that we rarely see the whole picture.  What we are living is but a flash of the greater picture – a thread in a magnificent tapestry.

Trust and believe today and live into the life God has for you!