Texts: Luke 24.44-53 and Acts 1.1-11
Ascension Day
When I was a boy chorister, Ascension
Day was always very exciting. We used to
get up early, before school, and climb to the top of the tower of St Michael’s
church, Kingsteignton – in Devon where I grew up. There, at the top of our lungs we would sing one
of the great Ascension hymns. It was
always a memorable day…made all the more so, one year, when a chorister who
wore some of the first contact lenses dared to look down from the roof of the
tower, only to watch one of her contacts leave her eye, and spin slowly to the
ground! We spent the rest of the time
before school hunting for her contact lens in the gravel below the tower!
On Ascension Day, we recall Jesus’s
rather dramatic departure from the earthly scene. Our readings, both from the
same author – the illustrious Luke – present us with two slightly different
versions of events. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus pretty much wraps things up in
Jerusalem with a blessing, and then poof, he’s gone. A quick and dignified
exit. But then, in Acts, we get the cloud, the staring disciples, and the two
rather stern-looking chaps in white who essentially say, “Right, lads, stop
gawping, he’ll be back.” It’s a bit like comparing a party balloon with a
glitter cannon. Both get the job done, but one is undeniably more theatrical.
But why the discrepancy? Did Luke
just wake up one morning and think, "I know what this story needs? More
clouds! And less Jerusalem!"? Or
perhaps, and this is where a more progressive interpretation comes in, Luke
(being a rather clever fellow) understood something about storytelling and
evolving theology.
The Gospel account, written
earlier, likely reflects a more immediate, personal understanding of Jesus’s
final moments. But by the time he wrote Acts, Luke had had more time to
reflect, to shape the narrative into something that spoke more powerfully to
the nascent Christian community. He was doing theology, not journalism. He was
painting a picture, not taking a photograph. And sometimes, to truly grasp a
deep truth, you need a bit of glitter and a cloud or two.
And let’s not forget the worldview
these stories emerged from. For our biblical ancestors, the universe wasn’t a
vast, expanding cosmic soup with black holes and nebulae. Oh no. It was a neat,
tidy, three-tiered affair – a bit like the Harry Potter Night-bus, or a triple
decker sandwich. There was heaven above,
where God and the angels dwelled, perhaps on rather plush celestial sofas.
Earth in the middle, our somewhat messy domain. And below, the world of the
dead, Sheol, a rather gloomy basement apartment, not quite hell in the fiery
sense, but certainly not a place you’d choose for a holiday. So, for Jesus to "ascend"
literally meant he was going up to
God’s domain. It made perfect sense in their spatial understanding of reality.
It was a cosmic elevator ride to the penthouse suite.
But for us, living in an age of
space telescopes and quantum physics, a literal ascent through the atmosphere
feels… well, a bit quaint, doesn't it? Do we imagine Jesus zipping past the
International Space Station, giving a little wave to the pilots of UFOs that
might be circling the earth? No, that’s
not how we read it. The deeper meaning of the Ascension - what it still has to
communicate to us today - isn’t about astrophysics; it’s about metaphysics.
It’s about the nature of God’s presence in the world.
The Ascension isn't Jesus
abandoning us; it's Jesus permeating
us. It’s not about him going away; it’s about him being everywhere. When we say
Jesus is "at the right hand of God," we’re not picturing a heavenly
throne room with Jesus perched on a golden stool next to the Almighty. We’re
talking about a theological shorthand for divine authority, power, and ultimate
presence. It means that the divine, as embodied in Jesus, is now fully
integrated into the very fabric of existence.
The Ascension is a cosmic inhale.
It’s the breath of God drawing all that is good, true, and beautiful into the
divine heart. It’s a profound affirmation that humanity, in its highest
expression as Jesus, is not separate from the divine but intimately connected,
indeed, inseparable. Jesus, fully human, ascends into the fully divine. He shows us that our humanity, when fully
lived in love and compassion, is also part of the divine dance.
So, how do we read this story in a
way that is relevant and sensible to our modern world? We read it not as a
historical documentary of a celestial journey, but as a myth in the truest,
deepest sense of the word. It’s a myth that reveals profound truths about
reality. The Ascension tells us that God is not a distant, absentee landlord,
but an indwelling presence. It tells us that the spirit of Christ, that radical
love and transformative power, is not confined to a single historical figure
but is now accessible to all, within all, and through all who seek it.
It means we don't have to look up
to find Jesus; we look around. We
look at the marginalized, the suffering, the joyful, the courageous. We look at
the beauty of creation, the resilience of the human spirit. We look within
ourselves, at the stirrings of compassion and justice. Because if Jesus is
ascended, if he is truly "at the right hand of God," then he is
immanent, present, and actively working through each one of us, right here,
right now.
So, let us not stare gawping at the
sky, waiting for a dramatic return. Let us rather look to our hands, our feet,
our hearts. Let us embody the Christ that has ascended into all things, and in
doing so, bring a little bit of heaven, here on earth. Amen.
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