Revelation 1: 17-18

17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he placed his right hand on me, saying, ‘Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, ¹⁸and the living one. I was dead, and see, I am alive for ever and ever; and I have the keys of Death and of Hades.

It’s an interesting question; how did the early followers of Jesus understand His ‘Ascended Glory’? It’s a question that we ask too.  Who is Jesus, now in our day and time?

Life can often feel as if God is silent, distant, uninvolved and inert; is God unaffected by our situation? Those 1^st century disciples that John was writing to were given a vision of Jesus that was anything but uninvolved, untouched or unaffected. Jesus was understood by these disciples to be all that could be said about life; he had tasted death and appealed to His followers to recognise that in His ascended Glory He was alive for them and they should rest in the fact that He held the keys to all that that threatened them. They were safe; the future now belongs to Jesus. There are fewer more comforting and assuring words that come from the mouth of Jesus than these; ‘Do not be afraid;’

So? Do not be afraid when people let you down, do not be afraid when your education lets you down, do not be afraid when health let you down, do not be afraid when the church lets you down, do not be afraid!; because Jesus is the living One; He never leaves us and is active preparing a place for us, a Kingdom of peace that he invites us to participate in right now. May the peace of Jesus infuse our lives in all the circumstances that we find ourselves in; especially those not of our own choosing. Jesus in His Ascended Glory hold us and our future in His life giving and peaceful hands.