24th May, 2020.
​
My dear friends,

There are small signs here and there of life returning to something like normal. I was able to take a suit to the dry-cleaner’s on Thursday; and I can’t tell you what pleasure I got from carrying out that everyday task – something I wouldn’t previously have thought twice about.

At the same time, these continue to be strange and difficult times for all of us. My heart goes out to everyone who has suffered a bereavement because of Coronavirus, and to all who are anxious because they have a loved-one in hospital. Other people have lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic and are trying to find new work. I remember them all in my daily prayers, asking God to bless, strengthen and guide them. With God’s grace and guidance, may we find new ways of helping and supporting other people.

At this time of the year, members of St John Ambulance in Essex would normally be gearing up for all the usual Summer duties at events such as the V-Festival, Clacton Air Show, and a wide variety of sports and social events. I am sure that as the Coronavirus pandemic eases and things improve, these engagements will all begin to reappear in our diaries and calendars. In the meanwhile, members of St John are quietly supporting the NHS and helping to keep the country going. This is valuable work indeed. We remain profoundly grateful for all that you are doing.

With kindest regards,

The Rev. Dr ROBERT BEAKEN, County Chaplain
EASTER 7/SUNDAY AFTER THE ASCENSION – 24th MAY 2020.
 
Gospel: St John chapter 17, verses 1-1
If you visit Jerusalem, and toil up to the top of the Mount of Olives, you reach a little octagonal chapel, surrounded by an old stone wall. It is the Chapel of the Ascension, rebuilt several times, and marking the spot from which Jesus is believed to have ascended back to heaven forty days after his Resurrection. Indeed, inside there is a stone that is claimed to bear the imprint of his foot – ‘enriched’, I suspect, by some Byzantine or Crusader stonemason.
​
            As I stood there, looking around the inside of the little chapel, I wondered to myself, ‘How do they know it was here?’ The same thought passed through my mind when I stood inside the Church of the Annunciation in Bethlehem, and gazed down at the spot where the Archangel Gabriel is supposed to have appeared to Mary. The answer, which I offer as a historian, is the persistence of folk memory. It might not have been exactly on that spot, but – give or take a few yards – from somewhere nearby, Jesus Christ ascended back to Heaven.

            When I was a vicar in Colchester, I had a lovely old priest as the incumbent of the neighbouring parish, Canon Handescombe. I met him once and he told me he had just conducted a school assembly on the theme of the Ascension of Christ. I asked him how on earth he had managed to convey the Ascension to a lot of primary school children? It is, after all, somewhat complicated theology. “Easy,” he replied, “I just told them about ‘Star Trek’” – (Do you, dear reader, remember Star Trek on the television? I fear it rather dates us) – “and I told them about ‘beam me up, Scottie’”.

            I probably groaned, but actually it was quite a good point. We don’t know the manner in which Jesus ascended back into Heaven – just as there are lots of other aspects of Christianity we don’t really understand, and must simply accept in faith – but “Beam me up, Scottie” is as honest and faithful a starting point as we are likely to get.

            If we don’t really know how the Ascension happened, we can work out some of its implications.

            Jesus was born a baby, of the Virgin Mary, by the power of the Holy Spirit. He was both the Son of God and also completely human. This meant Jesus was a normal baby: he needed his nappy changing, and burping, and feeding. He grew up to be a normal man, just like us, except he alone never sinned. He earned his living as a carpenter until he began his three years of public ministry, aged 30.

            When some three years later Jesus ascended back to Heaven, he took with him his accumulated human, earthly experience. This means that God the Holy Trinity is now a bit different. Beforehand, God knew what it was like to be a man or a woman from the point of view of the Creator looking at and caring for His creation. Now, after the Ascension, all Jesus’ experiences whilst on earth have been taken into the Holy Trinity. This is very important. It means that when we pray, we address a God who knows what our life is like. To have a sore pain in your tummy. To love your family; or be grief stricken when one of them is very ill or dies. To be happy; or tired; or anxious about work; or pleased that some project has worked out all right.

            The message I try to get across over and over again in my work – in ministering to the sick and anxious, in Baptisms, and weddings, and funerals, and in a 1,001 other aspects of parish life – is that Jesus Christ is our friend. He is many other things too: present at our Creation, our redeemer, our judge, our high priest, and much else besides. But above all, I try to say to people, Jesus is our friend: indeed, the best and most reliable friend we shall ever have. We mustn’t be frightened of Jesus, whatever we may have done or said in the past. He knows us better than we know ourselves, and despite, or because of everything, he offers us his friendship, as well as forgiveness, a fresh start, and life that can never be taken away from us.

            And you know what? When we get to Heaven, we shall find that there are not words enough – or concepts, images and ideas adequate enough – to express just how much Jesus loves us.