A Shout


God Has Gone Up With A Shout 
Luke 24. ... v50 Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. 51While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. 52And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; 53and they were continually in the temple blessing God. (NRSV)
Acts 1. ... v9 When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10While he was going and they were gazing up towards heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. 11They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.’ 12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet ... (NRSV)
When Kristen was born in 1993, we lived in Apalachicola, in the rectory of Trinity Episcopal Church. From the time she was six weeks old, she came often to stay with us for a few nights, and as with most babies, there were evenings when she was too fussy to go to sleep. Putting her in her stroller, I would take her next door to the church and turn on the spotlights illuminating the stained glass windows over the Altar. At the exquisitely beautiful, brilliant jeweled sight, she opened her eyes wide and stared almost without blinking, as I began walking her round and round the nave. Across before the window, down a side aisle, across, up the center aisle, across, down a side aisle, across, up the center aisle, across ... She always eventually dozed off, and I picked her up and took her back to the house, sound asleep. Principal Feasts of the Church are different things to different folks, that is The Ascension, to me.

The picture doesn't do it justice, but Trinity's center window at night is one of the loveliest things I’ve ever known. 
Many have understood the Ascension physically, and this may or may not have been what Luke the Evangelist meant to convey at the end of his gospel and the beginning of Acts. Elsewhere, Luke tells of Jesus being there and then not there, now you see him now you don’t, a spiritual body, resurrection body, that may have been, as Martin Bell said, “the same, only backwards.” More than once in class at seminary, my theology professor chuckled at the Himmelfahrt Christi with the feet disappearing into the cloud, Kanzel 1597 and Mattheis Störbel.


For me, the best part of Ascension Day is Psalm 47.
47  Omnes gentes, plaudite


1
Clap your hands, all you peoples; *
    shout to God with a cry of joy.


2
For the LORD Most High is to be feared; *
    he is the great King over all the earth.


3
He subdues the peoples under us, *
    and the nations under our feet.


4
He chooses our inheritance for us, *
    the pride of Jacob whom he loves.


5
God has gone up with a shout, *
    the LORD with the sound of the ram's-horn.


6
Sing praises to God, sing praises; *
    sing praises to our King, sing praises.


7
For God is King of all the earth; *
    sing praises with all your skill.


8
God reigns over the nations; *
    God sits upon his holy throne.


9
The nobles of the peoples have gathered together *
    with the people of the God of Abraham.


10
The rulers of the earth belong to God, *
    and he is highly exalted.
TW+