“Go And Spread The Message Of Salvation…!”

“Go And Spread The Message Of Salvation…!”
This year the day of a Muslim feast almost coincided with the Christian feast of Ascension commemorating the ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ. While some see it as a source of further religious tension, I consider it as God’s way of reminding us that all humanity belongs to him – including their religious inclinations.
Islam is founded from Christianity and Judaism while Christianity is founded from Judaism. Judaism itself did not begin like a tabula-rasa, but borrowed here and there from Canaanite religions.
However, the distinctiveness and to say the least, the uniqueness of the Christian faith is the belief in that one person who is the Son of God abd the Saviour of all humanity. Yet Christianity had to enrich itself with Hellenistic culture to be what it is.
As Son of God Jesus is one and the same with his Father. Though he became man and dwelled on earth, after he was raised from the dead, he returned and is living with the Father while making intercession for the believers.
Solomon acknowledged in his prayer of dedication of the temple that God’s dwelling is in heaven and there was no God like him because he keeps his covenant of love with the servants who serve him wholeheartedly.
The magnificience and beauty of the temple could easily lead to idolatory. It was possible to hold the erroneous notion that God was irreverently and exclusively bound to the temple in a way that guaranteed his assistance to Israel no matter how the people lived. The same is happening today when we build the most complicated church architecture and tend to idolize it.
In recognition of this, Solomon confessed that even though God had chosen to dwell among his people in a special and localized way, he far transcended containment by anything or by anybody in all creation(I Kgs 8:22-28). God belongs to all humanity, just as Christ is the Saviour of all humanity. God is present in any place where the people call on his name, but he is not the private possession of any group of people.
Before Jesus was taken up to heaven he said, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved…”(Mk.16:14-20).
Christ sits in heaven watching and prompting us to do what he has asked us to do. We do not have to absolutize our understanding of God’s ways and fail to appreciate those ways that may be different from ours but which contain what our limitations have overlooked and to which our sins have blinded us.
Jesus has ascended into heaven where he is interceding for us that no harm should come our way. But he has given us this great commission of making disciples of everybody. Be tolerant of those who do not agree with you. They have something to say. Listen to them with patience, so that when it is your time to talk they too will listen. And if you make your points clearer, you will convert them!
Ascension Day prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, while you intercede for us in heaven, let the Holy Spirit help us to be tolerant of those who have not yet known you fully. Amen!
Have a blessed Ascension day! Peace be with you!