(By Jody)
Luke 24:50-53
When I first started as a minister in 2005 it wouldn't have occurred to me to touch Ascension with a barge pole – I doubt I knew such a day existed. And once I became aware of it I spent another few years very consciously not touching it with a barge pole – because it just seemed a bit too fantastical and strange. No stranger, sure, than the resurrection of Jesus, except that a) it happens right in front of people (unlike the actual resurrection) and b) it is less familiar.
I mention this because Ascension has become increasingly important to me as time has gone on. Now that I'm a grown up with a decade of pastoring under my belt, I actually look forward to it. (Once I'm looking forward to Trinity Sunday, you'll know I've reached the gold standard of liturgical ministry.)
According to Luke's gospel, on Easter evening, Jesus took his disciples just out of Jerusalem and lifting up his hands, blessed them. Then "while he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven." This is where it feels harder to nod along and easier to quietly leave the Ascension by the wayside. How far up was Jesus to go before reaching "heaven"? How long would it have taken? Was the travel time significant, like the time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday? What expression would Jesus have worn once he was out of the disciples’ sight? And if he was really human how was he breathing?!
Yuri Gagarin, the first human to journey into outer space, is reported to have come back and said "I looked and looked but I didn't see God." (Though it's unlikely he actually did say this...)
Keith Ward has calculated that if Jesus began ascending two thousand years ago, at a pace that could be detected by the naked eye, he would not yet have left the Milky Way.
Which is only to say, heaven-as-up is an easier spatial image before jets and space travel.
Art reminds us we’re always trying to express the inexpressible with our scratchy pictures and clumsy words.
Albrecht Durer Picture
We’re trying to access another way of knowing than propositions that are hammered into place to form a watertight theory of God.
We might not think heaven is just out of sight, above our heads.
But we might still trust that heaven is complete divine presence.
And Ascension assures us that “complete divine presence” is where Jesus is: totally and utterly with God.
I love those solid footprints, a reminder and challenge to the disciples: to remain, to wait for God’s Spirit, to become the Church – the body of Christ on earth.
“Christ has no body but yours”, Teresa of Avila tells us from 500 years past, “no hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world, yours are the feet with which he walks to do good, yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.”
But this is only one side of the story. Because while those footprints and followers remain, those feet go up, those feet go to God. Those feet that are dusty, that are marked crucified, that have walked alone, that have walked with companions, that have walked to death, that have walked again in life.
Ascension proclaims that just as the world is not the same because of Jesus, God is not the same because of Jesus either. When we celebrate Ascension we celebrate the incredible openness of God to humanity, in the pipeline all along, but explicit in Jesus’ return to heaven. Incarnation is the coming, the living, the dying, the rising, of Christ Jesus. And Ascension is the gathering back into God of all of this.
"It is no longer possible to talk about God without talking about Jesus. Our lens for thinking about God must always include a crucified, risen, and living Christ. ... The God being worshipped by the disciples in our passage is also one who knows loneliness, betrayal, rejection, thirst and even death." (Mark Tranvik, Working Preacher)
We have a curious knack for turning the God of the Bible into the God of Ancient Philosophy (all powerful, all knowing, unchanging – and to be fair you can find plenty of biblical support). But it's not the full picture, and certainly not the final picture of God, once we absorb the message of Ascension.
"When we turn to God in times of distress or temptation we are not addressing a deity aloof and unfamiliar with our struggles. God knows our trials intimately well and not only comforts us by identifying with our pain but also assures us that affliction will not have final word because it is the risen and ascended Christ who intercedes for us and nothing can separate us from his love." (Mark Tranvik, Working Preacher)
I learned this theology as propositions years ago. The images of Ascension gives it colour and movement.
The footprints, the feet, the earth, the sky, the known, the unknown, the past, the future, God among us, God beyond us... Ascension claims they all impact each other, and that it’s good news.
So:
There is no God in heaven
but the one Christ returned to.
With hands and feet in heaven that bear the scars of suffering.
Those feet have gone before ours in pain, in failure, in despair, in death.
And in resurrection.
Those human feet carry humanity to the heart of God.
And there we are, caught up in divine life and loving.
There is no God in heaven
but the one who has known humanity.
Does it change anything for you if the divine walked our world, if humanity is tucked into heaven? What are you going through at the moment that God might actually understand? Do you find it comforting or disturbing to think this God is the only God we have? And are comfort and disturbance mutually exclusive?
Luke 24:50-53
When I first started as a minister in 2005 it wouldn't have occurred to me to touch Ascension with a barge pole – I doubt I knew such a day existed. And once I became aware of it I spent another few years very consciously not touching it with a barge pole – because it just seemed a bit too fantastical and strange. No stranger, sure, than the resurrection of Jesus, except that a) it happens right in front of people (unlike the actual resurrection) and b) it is less familiar.
I mention this because Ascension has become increasingly important to me as time has gone on. Now that I'm a grown up with a decade of pastoring under my belt, I actually look forward to it. (Once I'm looking forward to Trinity Sunday, you'll know I've reached the gold standard of liturgical ministry.)
According to Luke's gospel, on Easter evening, Jesus took his disciples just out of Jerusalem and lifting up his hands, blessed them. Then "while he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven." This is where it feels harder to nod along and easier to quietly leave the Ascension by the wayside. How far up was Jesus to go before reaching "heaven"? How long would it have taken? Was the travel time significant, like the time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday? What expression would Jesus have worn once he was out of the disciples’ sight? And if he was really human how was he breathing?!
Yuri Gagarin, the first human to journey into outer space, is reported to have come back and said "I looked and looked but I didn't see God." (Though it's unlikely he actually did say this...)
Keith Ward has calculated that if Jesus began ascending two thousand years ago, at a pace that could be detected by the naked eye, he would not yet have left the Milky Way.
Which is only to say, heaven-as-up is an easier spatial image before jets and space travel.
Art reminds us we’re always trying to express the inexpressible with our scratchy pictures and clumsy words.
Albrecht Durer Picture
We’re trying to access another way of knowing than propositions that are hammered into place to form a watertight theory of God.
We might not think heaven is just out of sight, above our heads.
But we might still trust that heaven is complete divine presence.
And Ascension assures us that “complete divine presence” is where Jesus is: totally and utterly with God.
I love those solid footprints, a reminder and challenge to the disciples: to remain, to wait for God’s Spirit, to become the Church – the body of Christ on earth.
“Christ has no body but yours”, Teresa of Avila tells us from 500 years past, “no hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world, yours are the feet with which he walks to do good, yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.”
But this is only one side of the story. Because while those footprints and followers remain, those feet go up, those feet go to God. Those feet that are dusty, that are marked crucified, that have walked alone, that have walked with companions, that have walked to death, that have walked again in life.
Ascension proclaims that just as the world is not the same because of Jesus, God is not the same because of Jesus either. When we celebrate Ascension we celebrate the incredible openness of God to humanity, in the pipeline all along, but explicit in Jesus’ return to heaven. Incarnation is the coming, the living, the dying, the rising, of Christ Jesus. And Ascension is the gathering back into God of all of this.
"It is no longer possible to talk about God without talking about Jesus. Our lens for thinking about God must always include a crucified, risen, and living Christ. ... The God being worshipped by the disciples in our passage is also one who knows loneliness, betrayal, rejection, thirst and even death." (Mark Tranvik, Working Preacher)
We have a curious knack for turning the God of the Bible into the God of Ancient Philosophy (all powerful, all knowing, unchanging – and to be fair you can find plenty of biblical support). But it's not the full picture, and certainly not the final picture of God, once we absorb the message of Ascension.
"When we turn to God in times of distress or temptation we are not addressing a deity aloof and unfamiliar with our struggles. God knows our trials intimately well and not only comforts us by identifying with our pain but also assures us that affliction will not have final word because it is the risen and ascended Christ who intercedes for us and nothing can separate us from his love." (Mark Tranvik, Working Preacher)
I learned this theology as propositions years ago. The images of Ascension gives it colour and movement.
The footprints, the feet, the earth, the sky, the known, the unknown, the past, the future, God among us, God beyond us... Ascension claims they all impact each other, and that it’s good news.
So:
There is no God in heaven
but the one Christ returned to.
With hands and feet in heaven that bear the scars of suffering.
Those feet have gone before ours in pain, in failure, in despair, in death.
And in resurrection.
Those human feet carry humanity to the heart of God.
And there we are, caught up in divine life and loving.
There is no God in heaven
but the one who has known humanity.
Does it change anything for you if the divine walked our world, if humanity is tucked into heaven? What are you going through at the moment that God might actually understand? Do you find it comforting or disturbing to think this God is the only God we have? And are comfort and disturbance mutually exclusive?
