Hi everyone, I wanted to share this information that I learnt from church today. I had not heard this before and found it interesting and thought I would share it with you.
.......
I was one day was told that the flowers from the horse chestnut tree remind us about ascension. And that's because of course they're pointing straight up. Sometimes people call them candles, don't they? chestnut candles because unlike this slightly battered specimen here, when they are fully in flower, they're glowing either white or sometimes pink. They're really bright. You can see them from a far way off and they're pointing straight up as if they're like candles, you know, the ones that you stick on a Christmas tree.
And the reason that we were told that they were ascension flowers is because they're pointing and they're pointing up bit like that bit in the reading from Acts where the angels are saying, "Why are you looking staring up into the sky?" And they're pointing us that direction, aren't they? They're saying, "That's where he went." And Jesus, you went up there. He went up there up above and they flower at ascension or thereabouts.
But they're not the only tree that's flowering at the moment. Some things you might not notice so much. I've got some sycamore. Here we are looking a little bit tatty and worse aware. Again, it wasn't until a few years ago I even noticed the sycamore flowers. And I don't know if maybe you've walked past it more trees and never seen them before, but here they are, green, written nondescript, dangling down. This one, you can see it's start starting to go to seed. We've got those little keys hanging down from it.
And that did make me think that we've got this whole story of the life Christ sown to us through these flowers, haven't we? Here we've got them pointing down. Pointing down in this kind of green nondescript humbleness. Humble pharaohs that aren't gaudy don't draw attention to themsself. Pointing down to the earth, pointing down to where we are because Jesus came down to be with us. And he came down not in a great fanfare, not in those clouds of heaven, but born as a tiny human child, in the most ordinary of circumstances, into the most ordinary of families, growing up and living and loving amongst us.
And it seems to me that at ascension, it's a good time for us to remember this span of Jesus life walking on the earth amongst us this family of Jesus' life from him coming down in humbleness to live in a human family and then this triumphant and spectacular ascension with all those disciples standing and staring up into heaven. Now of course the angels come and they say to them why are you standing around looking up into heaven? Jesus he's been taken up into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go.
.......
Roses to remind us of Jesus’ crucifixion and they remind us of Mary as well.
