Easter Authority

The practice of observing and celebrating Easter through and including Pentecost is not the way things have always been done.  Indeed there are lots of places where the paschal candle is extinguished and removed during the Ascension service.

That association of Jesus, as the one raised from the dead with the flame that first burns before we finish our prayers huddled in the dark predawn of the Great Vigil speaks to that foundational understanding that we are first and foremost Easter people.

Even as we rehearse the pain and fear, like that which brought the disciples back behind the locked doors of the upper room we rely on his kindled presence with us, singly lighting our way up to the first Alleluia of release and celebration.

And he is with us for a proper 40 days as the one raised so that we might enjoy a fulfilling transition to our own joys of resurrection living.

But I'll confess that I can't find much about how extinguishing that symbolic light with 10 days still to go until Pentecost was understood.  Or better said, I can't find much on what Christians did during those ten days that helped with teaching or confirming some truth or lesson.

Some understood Ascension as more than Christ's removal to God's right hand in glory, and the theological implication is that the Ascension was the final redemptive act conferring participation in the divine life on all who are members of Christ. In other words, Christ “was lifted up into heaven so that he might make us partakers of his Godhead.”

Pentecost finishes and expands that partaking.  But I still can't find much about how we should proceed liturgically through these last 10 days until the Holy Spirit crowns us with her fire.

But we can know this: the wounds that confirmed for Thomas that it was his beloved teacher now raised and acclaimed as "Lord and God," go with Jesus and are before God the Father while we await the harvest of power that is Pentecost.

If everything before the cross was God with us in the flesh of the carpenter's son, then everything after he ascends is our flesh with God.  And God knows all the more to whom the Holy Spirit descends with power and gifts.