Paul tells us we are ascended with Christ (past tense); that the Father has seated us with Christ in "the heavenly realms."
This is a mystical truth but no less real for the mystery. Jesus tells his disciples that he goes to prepare a place for them so that "where I am you may be also"...not just at the end of time but NOW.
Jesus takes our humanity into heaven so that heaven can inhabit our humanity. The kingdom life of the world to come is now within us as is Jesus himself...not as a wonderful thought, not symbolically, not even by imitation, but truly. This is the same reality of Christ himself that we call Eucharist.
Jesus and Paul speak of this union between Jesus and his disciples so often and so concretely that I wonder why it's not a greater fixture of contemporary Christian teaching.
A defining difference between where Jesus ascended and where we now stand is his immunity to time. Seated at the right hand of the Father, Jesus's humanity is no longer bound as it was in this life to past or future. Heaven is a mystery that cannot be described or understood without remainder but we might call it an "eternal present" that is available to every moment of time—past, present, or future—because it stands outside of it. And heaven is not somewhere 'out there' but a realm that has drawn near to us in Jesus.
I have begun to experience union with Christ's risen presence in greater and greater measure. Because he dwells in me I can have ever-increasing freedom from the hurts and wrongs of the past. I can walk in ever-greater forgiveness and reconciliation with others, letting go of resentments or regrets that bind me to the past by Christ's capacities in me, as I seek to redeem relationships in the present moment.
Likewise, it's becoming possible to live in the moment with less and less fear or anxiety about the future. Many Christians are slaves to the future, worried about our nation (a tremendous binding fear these days), the larger geopolitical world, their families, their livelihoods, diseases, the natural order and just about everything. Fear and paranoia are epidemic and we are easily manipulated by whispers of conspiracy.
Of course, it's not possible to be absolutely free from the past or the future so long as we are time-bound. Memories and the lessons of the past are important to the present moment. Planning ahead for certain things is also prudent and means we must extend our self by imagination into the future from time to time in order to live as well as we might.
But we cannot live in the past or live in the future. We have to live in the present. The past is gone and the future is unavailable. We cannot get to either of them. All we have is right now.
God is present in the moment, ready to act in and through us for the sake of his kingdom, to redeem others and the creation by our union with Jesus Christ. Are we at peace with the past and future and available to God right now?
We should recognize that it's possible for us to escape the moment by not being fully present to it. This can at times be beneficial. Good art (books, music, film, theater, painting) can help us reflect on our past, future and present, even helpfully transcend them at times, but we can also live in near-perpetual escape from the present moment.
We have perfected the art of escape via virtual worlds, 24-hour entertainment, news, and sports, and the omnipresent electronic screens that rob us of immediacy to others and even ourselves; this wars against our ability to be here, right now.
Our union with Jesus, as we draw by grace on the new humanity he has taken with him into heaven—that kingdom that also now resides in us by his presence in us—grants us freedom from the wounds and sins of the past and the worries and fears of the future, helps us to resist the temptation to escape the present in destructive ways, disciplines us to live in the moment, that we might be aware of and available to the work of the Spirit, ready to cooperate with him in the renewal of all things.
This is critical for there are many that sit in darkness and the shadow of death that need those filled with the light of Christ Jesus to be light, to step into the good works that Christ has prepared for us to walk in.
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