Common Ground Song 20 ‘Clap your hands’
Words / Music: John Bell © WGRG / Iona Community
YouTube recording:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpN_kcuA-qU or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3XNYnX7NtE
Featured image: Detail of the east window of St Mark’s church, Leeds © Stephen Craven

I have picked this hymn by John Bell for today as it is Ascension Day. This church festival ten days before Pentecost used to be much more a feature of the church calendar than it is now. In fact, only one of the ten nearest Church of England parishes to us was having a service today, and a lovely service it was.

The Ascension is the occasion recorded in Matthew’s and Luke’s gospels and the book of Acts, when Jesus appeared visibly to his disciples for the last time: forty days after his resurrection, and ten days before the festival of Pentecost. Before disappearing from their sight as he ascended into a cloud, he blessed them for the final time, and again promised the gift of the Holy Spirit, which they would receive at Pentecost. The preacher this evening spoke of it as a ‘signposting’ event, looking back to the history of God’s people and more recently the events of Holy Week, and forward to the Church’s task of evangelism, starting at Pentecost, as well as 'upwards' (which we may interpret symbolically) to God.

I will be preaching on Luke’s account of this on Sunday morning, and I will as usual post my sermon online. But in short, I will be speaking of this as a time ‘betwixt and between’ – when one phase of life has not quite finished and another is hinted at, but not yet begun. Times that are often confusing for those going through them, as we all like certainty. I will encourage people to think of ‘between times’ in their own lives, and to pray for those they know who are going through such times.

The actual text of the hymn is a paraphrase of Psalm 47, which is one of the ‘psalms of ascent’ probably sung at festivals in Jerusalem. Once again, I was not able to find on YouTube a complete performance of the hymn. The first of two linked above is verses 1 and 4 (with words on screen); the second is verses 1, 2 and 5 (sung without words on screen).

Annoyingly, neither includes verse 3, which is what makes this hymn most appropriate for today, Ascension Day: ‘To the shouting in triumph, to the blasting of trumpets, God has gone up, God ascends over all’. The Church has always associated this Jewish scripture with Jesus’ ascension (even though trumpets are not mentioned in the Gospel accounts). But knowing how the ‘between time’ ended for the disciples, we can join with them in ‘shouting in triumph’ as we celebrate the end of Jesus’ mission on earth and the start of our own, filled with the Spirit.