Wednesday of Rogation is a hinge — the last of the three days of asking, and the eve of the great Feast that closes the forty days. Tomorrow our Lord is taken up. Tonight, the Church keeps watch. The vigil is not formal: there is no liturgical office of an Ascension Eve in the 1928 Book. But the soul that has prayed Rogation Sunday, and walked the bounds on Monday, and learned on Tuesday the right use of created things, finds herself this evening at a threshold she did not plan to cross. The work of the week has brought her here.
What is asked of her? Only this: to remain. To not slip away from the threshold before the morning. The disciples, on the evening before the Ascension, had no notion of what the next day would hold. They knew only that the Risen Lord had appeared to them through forty days, speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God, and had commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem. Their vigil was a vigil of obedience, not of insight. They stayed because they were told to stay. The Church has been keeping that vigil ever since.
The Wednesday Evening Prayer of our fellowship gathers tonight at five o'clock, in the rhythm of the week. The standing prayer rotation places For the Sick on this evening — and rightly so, for the high-priestly intercession of the Risen Christ, on the eve of His ascending, is for those who suffer. Hebrews makes the connection explicit: "Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." The Christ who tomorrow will pass through the heavens is tonight already interceding. Our prayer for the sick this evening rides upon His.
The Christ who tomorrow
will pass through the heavens
is tonight already interceding.
This is the deep theology of the Ascension that the older divines never tired of expounding. To say that Christ is ascended is not to say that He is absent. It is to say that He has taken His place at the right hand of the Father, where the work of intercession is unceasing. Our Lord did not come to earth merely to rescue us in His Passion and then leave us to fend for ourselves. He came to inaugurate a perpetual mediation. The Cross was the once-for-all sacrifice; the Ascension is the eternal application. The flesh in which He died and rose is the flesh that now stands before the Father. The wounds are the same wounds. The pleading does not cease.
And so on Rogation Wednesday, the asking that began on Sunday in our own mouths is taken up into His. We ask in His Name; He asks for us. We pray for the sick this evening; He prays for us. The Litany, with which the Rogation Days have always been associated, is not finally our work. It is His. We are joining a Voice that has been speaking before our voice was given.
So this evening, at five o'clock or whenever you can find a quiet hour, keep the vigil. Pray the Litany if you can; if you cannot, pray For the Sick by name. Tomorrow He goes up. Tonight He is interceding. And the bounds we walked on Monday, and the use we considered on Tuesday, are gathered up — at this very hour — and placed by Him before the Father.