In the Name of God:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Ah, the feast of the Ascension . . . one of the most important feasts of the Church year, and yet one of the feasts that lots of Christians let slide by.  Why is that?  Well . . . I suspect that lots of people have trouble with it, maybe find it a little embarrassing.  I mean, we’re all terribly sophisticated and scientific, and the Resurrection is hard enough for us to wrap our minds around . . . but the Ascension? . . . this idea that Jesus physically ascended into heaven? . . . what then?  Is he walking around in the clouds?  Come on!  Have you looked at a lot of the art – paintings mostly – depicting the Ascension?  They don’t help.

There’s a church near General Theological Seminary in Manhattan . . . it’s a Roman Catholic Church . . . I’ve probably told some of you about it.  It has a wonderful sculpted frieze on its façade.  If you look at it closely, you realize that the frieze is telling a story . . . actually two stories.  One is the story of creation and the other is the story of Jesus’ life.  If you follow the frieze around the building from beginning to end, the last scene depicted is the Ascension.  What you see is a crowd of disciples looking up at the sky . . . there is a big group of clouds in the sky . . .  and when you look closely, you see a couple of feet hanging out of the clouds . . . the last bit of Jesus to be seen before he disappears.

I love this sort of picture . . . but no wonder some people – especially extremely literal minded people – have trouble with this feast.  What to do . . . ?

Well, as I’ve mentioned to you before, we must remember that lots of the stories we know in the Bible aren’t meant to be factual history as we think of it today.  A few weeks ago we talked about the various Resurrection stories and I told you not to be too disturbed about the differences between the stories, because the point of the stories is not what actually happened to Jesus, at least not how the Resurrection actually occurred or what the risen Jesus was really like . . . the point of the Resurrection stories is what happened to the people who encountered the risen Lord.  And what happened to them is that they encountered the Kingdom of God in the person of the risen Jesus, and their lives were changed . . . transformed forever!

I think we can say similar things about the Ascension.  I’m going to remain mute – I hope wisely so – about what may or may not have actually happened.  After all, the Resurrection stories tell of a Jesus who can both cook and eat breakfast . . . and yet can walk through walls; a Jesus who can suddenly appear and disappear.  So I’m not gonna begin any discussions now about what KIND of body ascended into heaven or exactly HOW it happened.  Rather, I’d like to take a couple of minutes to ruminate on what the Ascension might have MEANT to Jesus’ followers.  And so perhaps get a sense of what it might mean to us. . . .

The Ascension is not an event separate from the rest of Jesus’ story . . . something tacked on that we can ignore because it makes us modern – or post-modern – scientific folks uncomfortable . . . no, the Ascension is the CULMINATION of the story.  For Jesus to be who we profess him to be through our faith and our creeds, his humiliation has to be followed by his glorification.  The humiliation of the cross and the glorification of the Ascension are opposite sides of the same event.  As the theologian John Macquarrie writes:  “The Ascension is the final symbol in the series of ‘mysteries’ by which the evangelists seek to portray the man Jesus of Nazareth in depth, so that he becomes the transparent revealer of God, and so that we see him as the Christ of faith.”[1]

Christ’s being “lifted up” into a cloud – which symbolizes the divine presence – means that he has become the exalted Lord.  This is what the Ascension means to the disciples:  in the departure of the risen Jesus, they experience him as the Christ of faith . . . in his leaving as he does, Jesus becomes ONE with the Father.  The offering of his life is received by God . . . just as the smoke of the ancient sacrifices went up into the sky to be received by the Almighty.  The Ascension is the final event revealing the full divinity of Jesus.

Well!  That seems like that should be enough, doesn’t it?  But there’s more, much more to the meaning of this event.  Yes, the Ascension is the final act in the story revealing that Jesus is the Christ . . . revealing Jesus’ divinity.  But Jesus was also one of us.  He was also human.  And his destiny is our destiny.  You and I are made in the image of God.  We are meant to become like God by imitating Jesus . . . by GIVING ourselves to God and to each other.  Christ, by completely giving himself to God, “ascended” to God.  This is our destiny too . . . this is what is meant for all humankind, following the way of the cross and the Resurrection.  In St. Athanasius’ famous words, “he was made man that we might be made God.”

That’s an incredible statement for some people:  “Christ was made human, so that we humans might be made God.”  When Jesus ascends into heaven, he takes his humanity with him . . . that’s the other piece of the meaning of the Ascension.  The Ascension not only reveals the divinity of Christ, it reveals the calling . . . the destiny of humanity . . . which is to become one with God.  Through the gift of the Holy Spirit we are enabled to follow Christ, growing daily in our love of God and our love of each other.  As St. Irenaeus wrote, “the Spirit purifies man and raises him up to the life of God.”  Christ is the destiny that God has set before us all . . . a destiny of union with God.  What a magnificent, astonishing destiny!

I’m reminded of one of Miranda’s famous lines in Shakespeare’s play The Tempest:

                                                                                    Oh, wonder!

                        How many goodly creatures are there here!

                        How beauteous mankind is!  Oh, brave new world,

                        That has such people in’t!

                                                                                                (Act V, sc. i)

Return to Grace Church Newsletter Page