Part of the imagery of the Ascension of Christ is that of the Messiah-King that has conquered enemies and now ascends the steps of his throne, and from his throne bestows honours and powers. These gifts confirm certain individuals in positions and functions of leadership within and for His Kingdom, so that the whole community may be stabilised and strengthened.

Because of the emphasis on being made mature I am led to offer some thoughts on Christian maturity.

There was an advertisement running some time ago that showed a determined little boy making his way on a small tricycle along a very long road running between fields towards a distant destination. The woman commentator declares: “We were all born with `Go’. The other stuff like `Stop’ or `Can’t’ had to be taught to us. And some of us,” she boasts “never learnt”.

The implications of this message seem to me to be twofold: first, that it is an inherently bad thing to learn about limitations and boundaries, and secondly, that the sphere of adulthood is inherently oppressive towards the sphere of childhood, because adults try to teach children about limitations and boundaries.

The best thing a child can do (the message teaches) is to pass into adulthood refusing to learn these things so that he may fulfil within his adulthood the potential he was born with and was free to exercise as a child. It was actually a cute advertisement, but I felt a sense of irony, knowing that in the Western world, including here in the Cayman Islands, there have been children and youngsters who have committed terrible crimes, for the very reason that they had not stopped some destructive impulse, and that they had not learned that there were certain things they could not do.

The advertisement suggests that adulthood goes wrong by teaching children, but a reality check confirms that where there has been a generational failure, it is that adulthood has not sufficiently taught our children.

An adult rightly teaches a child the Thou shalt nots, not because of a need of his own to oppress the child, but because through discipline the child will learn the means of achievement and learn about right and wrong.

A communication and unity between adult and child is necessary for the gifts of maturation to be imparted. Where there is a breakdown of communication those gifts cannot be readily given or received. On this view children who know only a life that is radically independent of the adults who bore them or who are otherwise responsible for them will be in danger of never receiving the gifts of maturation.

The disciples of Jesus could not fulfil their mature roles as apostles of the Church until they had received, in a way somewhat analogous to children being made mature for adulthood, the necessary gifts of maturation. In order for them to achieve their apostolic role, they had to walk with Jesus for some time, suffer with Him, be restored by Him, experience Him for some days in a state of Resurrection, and then finally be released to their vocation through His Ascension and the Pentecostal gifts. 2 Kings 2: 1 - 15 presents a slightly similar relationship process between Elijah and Elisha. Elisha could not have taken upon himself the mantle of Elijah, literally or metaphorically, if he had not walked in the company of Elijah and received of his spirit.

Christian adults have priestly and prophetic callings to pass on what they have received to the next generation as well as those outside the existing Church. For this we have to encourage our children to walk with us. Even on this simple level we wage a war against many influences and fashions, which act to drive communities and families apart rather than help them stay together.

The cute advertisement I have referred to, for instance, suggests that true maturity for the little boy is best achieved by his avoidance of the influence of adults. And the fact that often enough the word “adult” has become a euphemism for “bad” or “dirty” or some such thing should wake us up to what sort of a spirit this generation is really imparting to the next, and also to the ominous phenomenon of a fostering of radical independence between the successive generations of our day. For what purpose are the minds of the spiritual children being so separated from those who are called to be their spiritual shepherds?

In the Ascension Day Collect we have prayed that “like as we do believe thy only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into the heavens, so we may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and with him continually dwell”. Just as the Ascension of Christ marked a watershed in the maturing process of the first disciples towards their apostolic role in the early Church, so here it provides a model for the maturing of our hearts and minds also. We have to receive the grace to ascend, to swim upstream against the prevailing downstream drift. The Ascension of Christ opened the door for us, just as it did for the early Church, to be fully equipped by the graces and gifts that He bestows upon us from above, to prevail over the currents of the fashions of our time that have become so hostile towards our task.

For commentary, information and devotional material see www.churchofenglandcayman.com and www.anglicansatprayer.org