One might almost say that his Ascension, the mounting of his sacred humanity into the spaciousness and liberty of God, took place not only actually, at the end of his life, but again and again spiritually during his earthly sojourn, when he crossed back and forth between heaven and earth in the Sursum corda! of prayer.
That is the one gateway out of the world. Everything else belongs to the illusion with which the world practices self-deception, arguing that because it is possible to burst earthly bonds momentarily with the weapons of fancy and imagination, the freedom thus gained is genuine! Illusion of dream and desire; illusion of the sentiment of infinity, of intrinsic revolution and renewal—in reality this is nothing but life’s fine art of consoling us for the finality of our inborn limitations.
To believe means to be so rooted in Christ that he becomes the foundation of one’s own existence, the beginning and end of the movement known as life, its measure, and source of strength. The extent to which we succeed depends on our loyalty and our power of sacrifice. Hence the believer does well to say, not that he is a Christian, but that he is trying to become one. The better he succeeds, the wider the doors of existence will open for him. He will be caught up into that ‘crossing over’ continually effected in Christ. The Lord once said: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).
He who lives and moves in Christ takes the only road there is out of the labyrinthian tangle of the world into the freedom and new creation in God. By this nothing magical is meant; no loosening of reality or escape from its limitations; neither mysterious inner experiences, nor extraordinary heavenly eruptions, but something entirely realistic and candid. No fact is changed in the life concerned; talents, health, family, social position, property and occupation remain what they were. The daily routine, people and circumstances, continue to make the same demands. Reality remains reality—yet everything is different because the door has opened and the crossing over to Christ is made possible.
– The Lord
