Rector's Letter

Dedham Vicarage

May 2025

Dear Friends,

How wonderful it is to enjoy brighter, longer, warmer days, not one but two bank holiday long weekends and the effulgence and vitality of spring!  I hope this finds you in good heart for any or all of those reasons.

Followers of Jesus are also in good heart, for in this season of the church year we remember Jesus’s resurrection – His victory over death.  We also remember His ascension, which was (initially at least) an unsettling time for His first followers.  They had only just adjusted to the shock of His miraculous resurrection when they had to say goodbye to Him again on the Mount of Olives as He ascended to heaven.  But why?  In John’s Gospel we are reminded by Jesus, speaking to His disciples, that “it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you” (John 16:7).  Jesus ascends back to the right hand of the Father so that He might send His Holy Spirit on His Church.  That’s what we celebrate at Pentecost, but that’s next month! – for now all we need to know is that the risen Jesus didn’t stay here on earth, where He was bound by space and time, but went back to heaven so that He could be with us whenever and wherever we are in the person of the Holy Spirit.

The presence of the living God in the life of a follower of Jesus is one of the greatest privileges of faith and it is His ascension back to the Father that enables it – that’s why it’s good news and that’s why His people continue to remember the further miracle of His ascension after His resurrection.  Jesus is incredibly special.  He is human, but He is also God and that’s why His miraculous ministry, far from presenting a stumbling block to the modern scientific mind, should be a pointer to the truth that while He is human, He is much more than just a human.  And His presence by the Spirit is a promise to any and all who choose to follow Him.

May you know His presence and power in your life in this brighter, longer, warmer month of May and beyond!
 

Phillip

Revd Phillip Young