We welcome you at Lockwood Baptist Church to join us in your homes for our weekly service by reading through this script. We cannot be in church but we can still be together in spirit by sharing this worship.
The hymns and bible readings are not written out because they can easily be found on the internet. There are may Bible apps to download and there are hymns to be found on YouTube as well as the words on various sites.
ASCENSION SUNDAY
Acts 1:9-12
…Jesus was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk from the city.
Hymn
Hail, thou once despised Jesus!
And/or Before the throne of God above I have a strong and perfect plea.
Prayer of Approach
Lord of life, we do not know the face of the future, any more than your disciples did.
Like them, we have many questions: how to live, how to bear witness in these restricted times of lockdown, but…
Like them, we thirst for the living waters of the Spirit to inspire us in our daily lives and to give us a heart language in our testimony in whatever ways You lay before us, and as with them give us patience to wait for you to reveal your power as we follow them in praying until you do.
You have been raised in glory
that we might rise with dignity
You live in power that we might live in peace
You are present everywhere
that we might be fully present in our own lives
This we believe and this we step out on.
But we confess that we often have our eyes set in the clouds instead of on the earth You have given us. On the other hand we also desire heavenly treasure but keep believing that worldly means will help us attain it.
So, heavenly Father, forgive us for our short sightedness. Draw us away from the temptations to follow the ways of the nonChristian world, and call us to the down-to-earth message of Your love, to care for the needs of those around us, especially the lonely and marginalised.
You have called us through scripture to care for the widows and orphans among us; help us to see all those who are left out by society and are in need. Help us to break down the dividing walls that we have built, so that we may truly be one with all whom You love as You and Christ are one. For it is in Christ’s name we pray. Amen.
Intercessory Prayers for Ascension Sunday
Ascension – not feet disappearing into the sky but a Life embraced by God, a Life returned, fulfilled, complete. Lord, lift our vision above the poverty of our primitive imaginations to celebrate the life, death and the new life of Jesus, who now is Christ, for us and for the World.
Ascended Lord, in your mercy hear our prayer.
Ascension – not the loss of Jesus but the gift of an ascended Lord, established in victory over everything that would destroy him. Lift our vision, we pray, to see that victory comes in many forms, and often through suffering. We pray for people who are suffering today for their faith, reviled and attacked, sometimes bombed and imprisoned, especially in the Middle and Far East. We pray that they will feel your presence and that their oppressors hands will be stopped.
Ascended Lord, in your mercy hear our prayer.
Ascension – not Jesus leaving home but Jesus returning home to the Father. Thank you for what home means to us, especially at this time of pandemic – a safe haven, security, acceptance, warmth, comfort. We pray for the many who are homeless, sleeping out in dangerous doorways, or miserable lodgings and at great risk from contracting Covid-19 in their weakened state. Thank you for those organisations and individuals who try to address the complex issues that homeless people often have, give them extra strength and resources in this time of need. Most of us have seen homeless people or sellers of the Big Issue in our city streets and perhaps have helped them in some way. We pray for some of them now, those we have seen recently or before lockdown…..
Ascended Lord, in your mercy hear our prayer.
Ascension – not an act of domination but an expression of the power of love. Lord, as followers and witnesses of your love, we pray that we may live our faith by loving our neighbour. All around us at this time our neighbours have needs, that we also share. Show us ways to help each other but where we cannot help may we never stop praying for people because prayer is one special way to help.
Ascended Lord, in your mercy hear our prayer.
Ascension – not as we see in stained glass windows and paintings, but as we know your living presence in our hearts. The drama of Jesus’ life has ended. The drama of His life in us has only just begun. Amen.
Reading
Luke 24:33-53
The Word (from Rev’d Brian Walters)
The Departure of Jesus into heaven that we call the Ascension is an event in the life of Jesus which because it happened on a Thursday we tend to overlook. But it is as important an event as Jesus’ birth, death and resurrection. Why? Because for a short period of time around some 30 years, almighty God who brought the vastness of the Universe into being by a single Word, became a human being – Jesus. That’s why Luke especially gives us details about time and place in his Gospel and in Acts. “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus…Joseph went from the town of Nazareth, to…Bethlehem…”. We’re told about Jesus’ birth, about his bar Mitzvah at 12 years of age….”In the fifteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberias”. When the Dove descended Jesus at his baptism and a voice from heaven was heard affirming Jesus was God’s Son, immediately Luke gives us his physical, historical ancestry.
Jesus was a Man set in time and place…but because of that, limited by his physical nature, and could only help and serve those with whom he was physically present. Even after his resurrection his body was different but not ‘omnipresent’, as the theologians love to describe it, not ‘present everywhere’ to us.
The Ascension changed that, it meant that the Spirit of Jesus could be present anywhere and everywhere, with every one of his followers in whatever need no matter where they are. So in Matthew’s account of the Ascension he said to his disciples “I am with you always to the end of the age.” Jesus is no fondly remembered religious teacher who said and did a lot of remarkable things..but is DEAD AND GONE!
No! Because of the Ascension the Living, resurrected Jesus is with each and every one who calls on him in their need today. And millions of people in every age and all over the world have known that experience – his very real presence alongside them as a friend as well as their Lord and their God.
And the Ascension means even more. In the reading above we saw that around this time Jesus told his disciples, “Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.
There are plenty of people around who love the Bible…as an example of Shakespearean English at its best. But they have no understanding of what it’s about! However, when anyone opens the Bible with a real desire to meet with God and prays for understanding of what God wants to say to them personally then, because of the Ascension, the Living Lord, Jesus Christ is right alongside, speaking to us. And it doesn’t take a lot of practice to experience this, but when it happens, believe me, you can face anything, and we all need to know that these trying times…and be sure of it.
When Jesus walked the dusty roads of Galilee, Samaria and Judea 2000 years ago, he healed and helped so many people, lonely, outcast and rejected people whom no one else wanted to know, touching people who hadn’t had a hug or felt a human hand on them for years, like the man with leprosy who asked Him to heal him, and the woman with the embarrassing haemorrhage that also made her ritually unclean; giving back self-esteem to a fallen woman he met by a well, asking her for drink; befriending a thieving tax-collector whom everyone hated and despised, who simply wanted the chance to have his life changed for the better, and so many more. But he also had to leave unhealed, untouched, unforgiven, so many people, rejected and lonely people, because he couldn’t meet them all.
But the Ascension changed all that. Now, by his Holy Spirit, he CAN draw alongside everyone who calls on him, lift them up, change their lives, bring hope and courage, wisdom and guidance, self-esteem, friendship and a family to belong to.
Look, no matter who you are, wherever you are, whatever you are and whatever your need, Jesus isn’t a man in an old story who helped a few people a couple of millennia ago, but because of the Ascension, he is available to everyone and anyone who calls on Him. (Acts 2.21; Romans 10.13) He’s HERE to help us all in this time of need
Benediction
Words of Blessing/assurance
We were made by God, brought forth from the earth,
the earth that was called good when God created it.
So our very being is good.
We are blessed, earth-born, and called forth to care for the earth and all who dwell in it.
So let us go into the unknown future knowing that we are forgiven and loved by the God who made the earth, and made us, and share this Good News. Amen.
Words of Blessing/assurance
We were made by God, brought forth from the earth,
the earth that was called good when God created it.
So our very being is good.
We are blessed, earth-born, and called forth to care for the earth and all who dwell in it.
So let us go into the unknown future knowing that we are forgiven and loved by the God who made the earth, and made us, and share this Good News. Amen.
