Alleluia echoes still ring in our churches and hearts. Candles blaze, flowers bloom, and the story bursts wide open; death is undone, the tomb is empty, and hope strides out into the morning light. Easter doesn’t whisper. It resounds. And rightly so.
Because resurrection is no small thing.
It means the worst thing is never the last thing. It means violence doesn’t win. That mercy and justice gets the final word. That love has staying power, even when everything else gives out. It is joy against the odds. And it’s ours, not just as an event in history, but as a truth that shapes our lives.
But after the trumpets fade, after the lilies begin to wilt, something curious happens in the story.
The risen Jesus doesn’t stay.
He appears, yes. He walks, speaks, even eats. But he’s never quite settled. Not fully present, not entirely absent. He comes through locked doors, vanishes after meals, appears in gardens and on roadsides, and then slips away again. It’s not the reunion the disciples expected. Not the comfort they might have hoped for. Jesus is alive, but different. Risen, but not restored to how things were.
And then comes the Ascension.
No fanfare this time. No rolling stones or dazzling angels. Just Jesus, blessing his friends one last time, and then… gone. Lifted from their sight. And there they are: disciples standing on a hillside, looking up at the sky. Waiting, blinking, stunned.
It’s the quietest turning point in the Gospel story. And maybe the most real.
Because it’s one thing to believe in resurrection when Jesus is right in front of you. It’s another to keep believing after he’s gone.
And that’s where May finds us: in the space after Easter joy, but before Pentecost fire. In the in-between. In the waiting.
I’ve known that place. I suspect you have too.
Years ago, after a stretch of ministry that felt vibrant and alive, full of community, clarity, even joy, I found myself dropped into a season of stillness. Not despair. Just… absence. No strong sense of direction. No holy fireworks. The prayers still came, but they echoed more than they used to. The work went on, but it felt thinner. And yet, I kept on doing what Vicars do, because, somewhere in that stillness, something was holding.
And I began to realise that the silence of God is not the same as the absence of God.
Which brings us to the dilemma.
How do we live faithfully in the space between presence and promise? How do we stay open when God seems hidden? What does it mean to trust not just in what we see, but in what we can’t?
We often ask, “What’s God doing for us?” But maybe the deeper question in this season is: “What does it cost God to love us like this?” To let go. To risk being misunderstood. To entrust the ongoing work of love to fallible people like us.
Ascension is not God abandoning the world. It’s God choosing to love us without overpowering us. To let us grow into this story, instead of controlling it from above. It is, in its own way, an act of divine vulnerability.
And here is the Good News: even in the waiting, God is faithful. Even in the silence, God is near. Even in the uncertainty, the story continues, not as a closed book, but as a living promise.
We don’t yet know how that promise will unfold, but we are asked to wait. Not passively, but expectantly. Not with answers, but with trust.
So, if this May finds you in the in-between, neither Easter joy nor Pentecost fire, take heart. The disciples were there too. And the next chapter, though not yet revealed, is coming.
Peace be with you in the waiting.
Until next time, God bless,
Darryl.