7th Sunday of Eastertide
Acts 1:15-17,20-26
1 Jn 4:11-16
Jn 17:11-19
…..they belong to the world no more than I belong to the world….
The Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord is the moment that Christ rises to Heaven and entrusts his disciples and all believers to carry on His mission. He is trusting His mission to you and me.
That truly stopped me in my tracks as the enormity – and the irony – settled on my mind. The Savior of the world is trusting you and me to carry on in his name. Carry on in his walk. Carry on in his love. The irony is that on a daily basis, most of us are internally conflicted in small matters with TRUSTING Jesus, truly being able to RELEASE ALL to Him; and here Jesus, THE Christ, THE Son of God is fully TRUSTING us to carry on in his mission of building the kingdom on earth ‘…as it is in heaven.’
Doesn’t that overwhelm your senses – overwhelm your mind and all rational thinking?
Jesus trusts us.
When I was little, it was easy to trust my parents, and really, all adults. Didn’t even realize I trusted them because, simply put, I trusted them. It wasn’t even a thought to not trust. Trusting my parents was part of my DNA. As I got a little older, I realized that everyone’s parents weren’t trustworthy. As I became a teenager and an adult, I realized that I had the option of trusting based on my intuition or past experience, or knowledge of a person. Some people had to show themselves to be trustworthy to gain my trust (and I venture to say this line of thinking is the norm for most everyone in the world today). Throughout the decades, some have proven to earn my trust, and sadly, many have proven not.
As man has evolved and become comfortable, it has become the norm that our line of thinking is ‘prove to me that I can trust you’ more than simply trusting, because trusting a person fully isn’t ‘smart’. Trust isn’t rational thinking; generally isn’t logical. Trusting a person – or an entire group of people – isn’t ‘science’. Those are the tools and stronghold of modern man. If we look at this, the world, all of humanity, the past, present and future through the perspective of man, well, this doesn’t compute. And therein lies our problem. The world puts its trust in the created and not in the Creator. We, the created, trying to make sense of the Creator’s ways. Why would we be trusted — look at the history of mankind starting with Adam and Eve, then Cain and Abel….
And yet, despite that, despite all that Jesus had seen and endured from us, he left fully trusting us to look to the Holy Spirit for guidance to love like He loves, and live in a manner that makes disciples of all men. He loves us so completely that He trusts us completely.
Don’t confuse Jesus with a great coach cheering us on, ‘believing’ in us, telling us to believe in ourselves. Simply believing in ourselves won’t get anyone to heaven. Believing is a first step – trusting is crossing the finish line. Jesus doesn’t simply believe in us – he has put HIS LIFE on the line, AGAIN. He TRUSTS you and me. Let that sink in today.
(Today’s OXYGEN by Gina Ulicny)
Prayer: Father God, we desire to be trustworthy. We desire to live the trust that Christ imparted to us. We desire to carry on in the name of your Son, our Lord and Saviour.
Thanksgiving: Thank you Father, for giving us Jesus to save us, and to show us how to love and trust our brothers and sisters, how to carry on.
OXYGEN 
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