Elements from this morning’s gathering

Call to Worship
Ascension Ladder Litany

Always descending God,
thank you for coming down to us,
born as a fragile child into our world,
taking on flesh and blood to dwell among us.

Always descending God,
thank you for going down deeper still,
into the abyss of absence,
into the depths of death,
so there will be nowhere we can go that you have not already been.

Always ascending God,
thank you for rising for us,
defeating the grave and conquering sin,
so they will not be permitted the final word.

Always ascending God,
thank you for rising to the heavens –
for as you rise, so we will follow,
until all things rise in a renewed creation.

Always descending God,
we open our hands to see you lifted,
we sense the loss of your nearby presence,
we await the promise that very soon, your Spirit will come down,
so God will be with us again.

Scripture Reading

Acts 1:1-11

Dear Theophilus, in the first volume of this book I wrote on everything that Jesus began to do and teach until the day he said good-bye to the apostles, the ones he had chosen through the Holy Spirit, and was taken up to heaven. After his death, he presented himself alive to them in many different settings over a period of forty days. In face-to-face meetings, he talked to them about things concerning the kingdom of God. As they met and ate meals together, he told them that they were on no account to leave Jerusalem but “must wait for what the Father promised: the promise you heard from me. John baptized in water; you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit. And soon.”

When they were together for the last time they asked, “Master, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now? Is this the time?”

He told them, “You don’t get to know the time. Timing is the Father’s business. What you’ll get is the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be able to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the world.”

These were his last words. As they watched, he was taken up and disappeared in a cloud. They stood there, staring into the empty sky.

Suddenly two men appeared—in white robes! They said, “You Galileans!—why do you just stand here looking up at an empty sky? This very Jesus who was taken up from among you to heaven will come as certainly—and mysteriously—as he left.”