Ascension of Jesus – Peculiar Faith

Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first human to journey beyond Earth’s atmosphere and into outer space. He completed one orbit of Earth in 108 minutes and did this in 1961 (roughly five months before I was born). A quote famously and mistakenly attributed to him actually came from a speech by Nikita Khrushchev about the USSR’s anti-religion campaign: “Gagarin flew into space, but didn’t see any god there.”

I have always loved that story, and I used it a lot in my seminary teaching to debunk the three-tiered universe of the ancient world: Heaven is not “up there” with Hell “down there” and Earth in-between the two. Yes, but then what about the exaltation of Jesus ascending into Heaven?

Tomorrow is the Feast of the Ascension. It’s a major feast day of the church comparable to Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, but it never falls directly on a Sunday. The event it commemorates occurred forty days after Easter Day—that’s when the gospel writer Luke indicates it happened, after a forty-day period of the risen Jesus appearing to his disciples and instructing them about the “kingdom of God.” (And by the way, Luke is the only one of the gospel writers to give us that story explicitly, which is found in Luke 24:50-53 and Acts 1:1-11).

What usually captures my attention straight away is just how unbelievable, quite literally, this story of the Ascension really is—an assessment with which Mr. Khruschev would likely agree wholeheartedly. As Luke tells it, the risen Jesus was “lifted up, and a cloud took him out of sight.” Two angels then appeared to the disciples—who were gazing toward heaven—to ask them why they were standing there looking up. They then returned to Jerusalem to wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit, which Jesus had promised to give.

Even the most devout Christians likely find this story difficult; it stretches our credulity to the breaking point. Where in the world is Jesus going in this story? Beyond the clouds? To outer space centuries before Yuri Gagarin? I remember how deeply my piety was offended back in my Evangelical youth when I first stumbled upon Salvador Dalí’s painting of the Ascension, which features the bottom of Jesus’ feet, as if portraying that moment from the viewpoint of the disciples on the ground. It seemed to me back then that the painting was a mockery or a caricature of the Gospel; much closer to the truth, I was probably chagrined at being confronted with the absurdity of the story itself—how could I possibly believe this?

By the time I went to seminary in my mid-twenties, I had come to appreciate the mythological character of gospel stories, which are not journalistic accounts of what happened, but visually dramatic invitations into a mystery. I recall fondly a celebration of the Ascension in the seminary chapel, which we offered with great solemnity and lots of incense. As we processed out of the chapel singing, all of us vested and seriously pious, our talented organist was playing that final hymn in the upper register but with his feet, and in subtle tones, he played “Up, Up, and Away in My Beautiful Balloon.” We all had a big grin on our faces as we sang and we had a good laugh back in the vesting area. I considered myself far too sophisticated to be offended by such good-hearted humor; besides, no one really believed that gospel story…right?

While more than a few biblical stories can render us incredulous, the Ascension of Jesus surely sits toward the top of that list. I try to make that incredulity a reminder of the symbolic character of all theological speech, including biblical stories. The infinite mystery of the living God is always beyond our direct comprehension, I say to myself, which is why we fantastical stories to awaken our imaginations to the presence of mystery at the very heart of the universe. After all, just because a story is mythological does not mean it is false; to the contrary, a myth might capture the truth far better than any journalistic reporting ever could. (And that’s a really good reason to stop using the word “myth” as a synonym for “untrue.”)

Now that I am no longer the pietistic Evangelical of my youth nor the clever sophisticate I fancied myself to be in seminary, I hope I am much more theologically humble as well as properly devout. I strive to live, in other words, as open as I can be to the presence of God all around me and in others and in my own life—a divine presence I can neither control nor manipulate and which is not at all reducible to propositional logic; music, poetry, and visual art are the best modes of engaging with that unfathomable mystery.

So how do I read Luke’s story of the Ascension today? In more than just one way, for sure, but at the very least with the conviction that the risen Jesus now dwells at the very heart of Creator God, and then also with the reassurance that where Jesus has led the way, we too shall follow.

Those convictions have helped me appreciate Dalí’s painting in fresh ways. As one commentator has noted, Dalí is fond of messing with our sense of conventional perspective. “Is the image of Christ rising? Is he traveling back into a distant vanishing point? Could he even be descending toward us? Our sense of space, and even time, gets a bit turned on its head here.” And I think that’s exactly what the gospel writers were likewise trying to do—to invite us to let go of our conventional perspectives and encounter the Mystery. (That observation came from an intriguing online web collective on art, which also quotes from another online source about the painting.)

Good-hearted humor can be part of all these convictions and assurances, too; I still smile when I think about the organist’s footwork in the seminary chapel. That musical moment helps me remember the essence of the story: up and up the risen Jesus goes, but not away. “Up” can more than only a vertical direction but could also mean “in, and close, and intimately.” The “heart of Creator God” abides not only above us but also around us and beneath us and in us, as well as in our relationships and communities and all the many ecosystems of this precious Earth in desperate need of the healing love of Easter.

Yes, and still in this Easter season, and on this eve of the Ascension, my heart is heavy. The daily news is filled with horrors and dismaying vignettes. Near the top of the items on that worrying list is Israel/Palestine. To be sure, the attack by Hamas on Israel in October 2023 was horrific and terrifyingly violent. And this is also true: the ongoing response by the State of Israel has been far worse—more than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza; of these, 17,000 are children. These are conservative estimates; many more are missing and unaccounted for, and currently another heartbreaking 14,000 children are, right now, in danger of starving to death or dying from untreated wounds and injuries. As more than a few commentators have noted, we are witnessing genocide happening in real time—on our televisions and in our news feeds.

I am at a complete loss about what to do or how to think and preach about this. (I’m grateful for the Office of Government Relations of The Episcopal Church, which maintains an extensive list on its website with links for the latest news, updates from our partners in the region, and resources for donating money. I’m also grateful for organizations like Doctors without Borders, and their dedication to providing not only assistance but also accurate reporting on the ground. (They note, for example, that humanitarian aid is in fact not getting through Israeli barricades despite the official reports to the contrary from the State of Israel.)

Meanwhile, tomorrow is still the Feast of the Ascension, and the Christian calendar invites me to reflect on that ancient story, not apart from the heartache of the present world, but in tandem with it. That’s where I land, as it were, even with a gaze fixed skyward: the risen Jesus dwells at the very heart of Creator God—and God’s heart is breaking in Gaza.

Daniel Bonnell’s art helps me in many ways, not least in recalling that God’s own heart always resides not only “above” us but at the depths of God’s own creation, which includes the suffering and pain of God’s creatures everywhere. Bonnell’s image of the baptism of Jesus, in a cruciform shape, including the Spirit-as-dove, invites me to connect and unite all the many aspects of the Jesus story into a singular proclamation: God is with us.

“The Baptism of Christ with Dove,” Daniel Bonnell

God is with us, in both heights and depths. May that great declaration of faith grant us the courage to do exactly what Jesus instructed his disciples to do as he “ascended”: to be his witnesses, in Jerusalem and to the ends of the Earth (Acts 1:8).

May we do precisely that, in every way we can, for however long we can, and for the sake of peace, with justice, and the healing of the world—everywhere.

See the Conqueror mounts in triumph; see the King in royal state…

Those are the opening phrases of a hymn often used for the seventh Sunday of Easter, when many churches hear about the Ascension of Jesus, the story of the risen Christ being lifted up and taken by a cloud into Heaven.

We used a revised version of that hymn at my parish yesterday morning, with words that portray the rising Jesus not as the one who conquers but the one who saves; and to offer our praise, not for the glory of vanquished foes but of tender hearts.

I am convinced, perhaps more than ever, that such differences make a difference in today’s world—especially among those of us who are eager to make Christian worship matter for a world in pain.

The older and more typical images for the Ascension—images of conquest and of the totalizing power of monarchy—reflect particular cultural assumptions. The original version of the hymn I just noted, for example, was written by Christopher Wordsworth, a nineteenth-century English Bishop, who was writing at the height of the British Empire. The triumph of the risen Jesus, in other words, is the global triumph of Western civilization.

This blending of divine and imperial power offers a cautionary tale about religion itself: it’s never merely benign or neutral. Even well-intentioned people can mingle religious institutions and cultural customs in harmful ways. More severely, religious symbols can be appropriated for nefarious and violent purposes.

Nearly every religious tradition has fallen prey to this kind of appropriation over the centuries. And it’s happening today, in this country and others, under the banner of “White Christian Nationalism.”

I am not referring to all forms of patriotic engagement with our civic institutions; I don’t mean “Christian” in the way all churches worship and serve; and I certainly don’t mean to imply that white people are inherently bad.

“White Christian Nationalism” describes a particular cultural movement rooted in authoritarian impulses, divisive and hateful rhetoric, and is increasingly violent. I urged my own parish yesterday morning to take up the vital work of resisting this burgeoning cultural movement, to denounce it, and then bear witness to the transformative love and healing grace of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

While it seems like a wild stretch to go from the first-century ascension of Jesus to twenty-first century nationalism, religious symbols have always been vulnerable to that kind of political manipulation.

It’s worth noting here some key features of symbols. Many years ago, when I first started to learn about metaphorical and symbolic speech in Christian theology, it troubled me. I worried that theological symbols made the world of Christian faith less “real” somehow—as many people often say, Oh, that’s just a symbol.

What I have realized about symbols since then is precisely the opposite. Symbolic speech points to a reality so real that our ordinary, everyday language fails us. Whatever we may be trying to consider, perhaps its intimacy is just too close, or the joy too ecstatic, or the grief just too unraveling—in any case, we cannot speak of it directly; we need a symbol.

Gospel writers do this frequently. Many churches heard from Luke’s Acts of the Apostles yesterday morning, for example, when the closest friends of Jesus encounter Easter itself embodied; the risen Jesus is standing before them, and they have no idea what to say (Acts 1:6-11).

All they can manage to do is to look backward, to what they knew in a time gone by—what glory used to be, what fullness of life felt like so long ago, and what happiness might yet be once again.

“So,” they ask Jesus, “is this when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”

That question sounds like such a wild non-sequitur it’s almost funny! But this is exactly the kind of question most of us would ask in a moment like that. Human beings always interpret and understand the world based on our past experiences and expectations. That’s really all we have to go on. Especially in disorienting moments of divine encounter we naturally revert to old patterns and familiar rhythms.

So while there’s nothing necessarily wrong with the question these disciples ask the risen Jesus, it just sets the bar far too low for Easter.

When we finally realize that Easter has ushered in a new world, already unfolding before us, with a wider horizon than we could have imagined, a dawn lighted with a brighter sun, we suddenly need a symbol for this, a way to talk about what we cannot possibly comprehend—and so Luke gives us the Ascension of Jesus to the right hand of God in Heaven.

It’s a beautiful symbol and it makes perfect sense to frame it with triumph. But precisely because “triumphalism” presents a real and present danger in today’s cultural moment, we need alternative frameworks.

We might consider a wonderful line from poet Mary Oliver: “My work,” she says, “is loving the world.” And that means, as she describes it, “mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.”

What might happen if we embraced the Ascension of Jesus, not with images of conquest and triumph, but with love and astonishment?

What if we were astounded not only by the spectacular pyro-technics usually associated with heavenly glory, but were also thoroughly amazed just by looking at each other, the nearly unspeakable glory of human faces? What if noticing iris blooming and dogs playing and babies taking their first steps actually took our breath away? Could we hear the wind in the springtime trees and the birds singing their own songs of praise in the early morning and the waves that come rolling up the ancient dunes along stunning shorelines and just stand still, astonished?

I don’t mean that we must choose between the heavenly glory of ascension and a down-to-earth God dwelling among us. To the contrary, the Ascension of Jesus invites us to embrace both and especially how they are inseparably intertwined. Right there is the good news of Luke’s dramatic symbol, of Jesus joining Heaven and Earth, revealing their intimate union.

Heaven is not far off, and Earth is not lost. They are joined, united, woven together in an unimaginable tapestry of divine beauty.

We must live into that vision of union and communion, or we risk abandoning Earth to those whose only desire is to “divide and conquer.”

God calls the Church to live as witnesses to flourishing life and gracious healing and the transformations that come only from love and laughter and all the things we can’t even dare yet to hope for—because Heaven and Earth are one.

And that’s what it means to live as Easter people, people who are loving and astonished.

Tag: Ascension of Jesus

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Heaven and Earth are One