7th Sunday of Easter -  Sunday after Ascension Day

[Ezekiel 36.24-28]; Acts 16.16-34; Revelation 22.12-14, 16-17, 20-end; John 17.20-end

O God the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: we beseech you, leave us not comfortless, but send your Holy Spirit to strengthen us and exalt us to the place where our Saviour Christ is gone before, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

YESTERDAY, the Church celebrated Ascension Day, which sets the theological context for this week's readings. Jesus, a forerunner on our behalf, has entered heaven (Hebrews 6.20), taking with him human nature.

This has profound implications for us, and, as the Revd Dr Andrew Davison noted last week (Faith, 3 May), Bishop Wordsworth's Ascension hymn is unbettered:

Thou hast raised our human nature
In the clouds to God's right hand; . .
Mighty Lord, in thine Ascension
We by faith behold our own.

A consequence of this is expressed when, at the eucharist, the president exhorts everyone: "Lift up your hearts;" and the confident response is "We lift them to the Lord." Because we are in Christ, our hearts belong in heaven with the Lord. A rarely sung verse of the same hymn by Bishop Wordworth expresses this:

Raise us up from earth to Heaven,
Give us wings of faith and love,
Gales of holy aspirations
Wafting us to realms above;
That, with hearts and minds uplifted,
We with Christ our Lord may dwell,
Where he sits enthroned in glory
In his heavenly citadel.

Although without sin, Jesus bore the consequences of sin, as a result of which his human body was wounded. He took those scars into heaven. Because there is a place in heaven for his wounds, through the ascension, there is a place in heaven for our wounds. Another hymn, by Matthew Bridges, expresses this:

Crown him the Lord of love!
Behold his hands and side,
Rich wounds, yet visible above
In beauty glorified.

What are the down-to-earth outworkings of this? The story from Acts began in the pitch black of a prison, possibly a dungeon, where Paul and Silas were incarcerated. They had been wounded from being flogged and fixed in stocks, and were not complaining about it, but keeping the other prisoners awake, as they prayed and sang hymns to God. Whatever happened to their bodies, their hearts were in heaven.

A violent earthquake followed, which, while terrifying, would not in itself unlock chains. Something strange was going on, as the rest of the story explains. The jailer's response to these extraordinary events, and the astonishing behaviour of Paul and Silas, was belief in Jesus. He washed their wounds, and took them home for a meal.

Did he see that the battered Paul and Silas were - as Jesus said - loved by God, as Jesus was loved? Given Paul's later fond letter to the Philippian church, the jailer became someone dear to Paul's heart. It all began here in the prison, as hearts were transformed. This was something that Ezekiel looked forward to, when speaking of God's promise of a new heart and new spirit, which are responsive to God's call and open to God's way of life.

There is a great deal of washing in this week's readings: water for cleansing, for healing, for entry into the city of God. The baptismal imagery is strong, which is appropriate in the Easter season. Christian initiation is into Christ, not just into a Christian lifestyle or beliefs; we are made one with Christ, and in him with his Father. The foundation for this is Jesus's prayer that, as the Father is in him and he is in the Father, all who believe in him will be one in God.

"Love" is Jesus's repeated way of speaking of divine relationships. We are called to live into and out of the richness of God's love within the Trinity, which cannot help but overflow and embrace all of God's creation. Ascensiontide is the theologically logical culmination of the creation of the world and the incarnation of the Son of God.

The petition in the collect - that the Holy Spirit will strengthen us and exalt us to the place where our Saviour Christ is gone before - is not mere presumption, but our faithful, joyful response to Jesus's high priestly prayer that "those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory."

This is our glorious hope. Before then, we may find ourselves washing the wounds of some unexpected future companions, people with whom we break bread.