WHAT HAPPENED ON ASCENSION DAY?

You will be reading this while I am in Germany, celebrating Ascension Day, or, as they charmingly call it, Himmefahrt.  This means Sky Journey, and everyone in Europe takes it off as a public holiday.  Only in pagan old England is it ignored.  To those in the know, Ascension Day is when Jesus took off a bit like a rocket and disappeared from earth, forty days after he rose from the dead.  It is all set out in the Acts of the Apostles 1.6-11.

But did it actually happen?  And are we talking about an event or a state of affairs?  The Bible is far from clear.

What is “forty”?

Luke, who wrote the Gospel of Luke and Acts, says that Jesus appeared to the disciples over forty days after the resurrection.  But forty in the Bible is an imprecise figure, just meaning “a lot of “, a bit similar to us saying, “I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.”  Here it probably means more than a month and it definitely means less than fifty, because that was when the next stage of the drama happened, at Pentecost , meaning fifty days after Passover/Easter.  But only Luke mentions it.  The other four major writers of the New Testament are silent. 

Let’s have a look at the evidence.

                                                       The Chapel of the Ascension, Mount of Olives

The evidence

Luke – the Gospel.  At Bethany, along the ridge of the Mount of Olives: “While he was blessing them, he withdrew from then and was carried up into heaven.”  (24.51)  This reads as if it happened the same day as he rose from the dead, but Luke presumably telescoped events.

Luke – Acts of the Apostle.  The Mount of Olives, outside Jerusalem:  “As they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.  While he was going and they were looking up into the sky, two men in white robes stood by them.  They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards the sky?  This Jesus, who has been taken from you into the sky, will come in the same way as you saw him go into the sky.”   (1.9-11)

Note:  “Heaven” and “sky” both translate the same word in Greek.  In fact, in older English, heaven was the normal  word for sky.

Matthew.  “Now the eleven went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them… Jesus came and said to them … “Remember, I am with you always, to he end of the age.”  (28.16, 18, 20)

John.  No explicit mention.  Though Jesus does talk about his going away in chapters 14 to 17, e.g. “A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me – because I am going to the Father…”  (16.17)  But there is no decisive moment when Jesus makes the transition.

Paul.  No specific event when Jesus made the transition, because “Last of all, as to someone untimely born, he appeared to me.”  (! Corinthians 15.8)

Indeed people still report seeing Jesus.  An elderly lady in my church in Hackbridge told me she saw him one Sunday during communion, standing by the lady chapel.

The later ending of Mark expresses the Church’s understanding:  “The Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven/sky and sat down  at the right hand of God.”  (16.19)

So:  Did it happen in Galilee or outside Jerusalem or not at all?  I think the police would say, the investigation is continuing.

Where is Jesus now?

On the whole, I think the best way to celebrate Ascension Day is to stop focusing on the event of Jesus leaving, as Luke’s account, but on the claim that he is still present and present even more powerfully than before.  Here are a few verses about this:

“(Nothing) in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.”  (Romans 8.39)

“(God) raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and power and dominion…”  (Ephesians 1.20,21)

“He humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.  Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name…”  (Philippians 2.8,9)

“Seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.”  (Colossians 3.1)

“We have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God.”  (Hebrews 4.14)

“Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.  About this we have much to say that is hard to explain, since you have become dull in understanding…”(Hebrews 5.8-11)

Conclusion?

I definitely feel that I am one of the “dull in understanding”.  As Barack Obama said, this is  above my pay grade.  I am content to acknowledge that there are spiritual realities which I cannot grasp.  Perhaps that is the true message of Ascension Day.  “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”  (Shakespeare, Hamlet 1.5.167)