Ascension? To Where?
Enjoy the Story
Seventh Sunday of Easter, this is three days after Ascension Day, last Thursday, when by tradition Jesus is lifted into heaven. To ascend physically, bodily, requires further thought, doesn't it, active imagination about where he would have been lifted to, eh, where did he go? To say “wherever” might be naive, tucking the Ascension into a mental cubby, shifting the brain into neutral and smugly crediting oneself with a “leap of faith,” as when Mark Twain said "faith is believing what you know damn well ain't so." But Ascension Day is one of the seven Major Feasts of the Church, and we assent to it in the Nicene Creed and sing hymns about it, and too there's our motto lex orandi lex credendi. A challenge for the intellect? Science and common sense v. faith? Ancient v. modern? Just say it and move on to the Eucharist?
Anglicans go with Scripture, Tradition and Reason. Ascension wouldn’t have been a question when Luke wrote about it (Luke 24:50-51 and Acts 1:9-10) around 80 A.D., because thought of Luke’s day two thousand years ago was that the flat earth is enclosed, covered with the protective firmament, a bowl-like dome sprinkled with tiny stars, beneath which the sun did its daily chore and the moon its monthly, providing light by day and light by night. Above the blue dome was water and somewhere beyond was heaven, the abode of God. That primitive view of the cosmos doesn’t satisfy even the most innocent soul today, when Yuri Gagarin has been up to check, and any curious person can take a small telescope and see the phases of Venus, the rings of Saturn, the moons of Jupiter, and even spot a spiral galaxy billions of miles distant. There’s no dome up there holding back water; sky and fertile field are not the foundation of our theology as was so in The Old Time; Jesus doesn’t have to outshine Elijah, Enoch and Moses; and spiritually and theologically we are today perhaps more inclined to look inward than beyond the stars anyway.
So, to where did Jesus ascend? Where did He go?
Taken literally, the question is a naivete not unlike searching the shores of the Sea of Galilee for a sandbar for Jesus to walk on (Mark 6:48), or searching the Mediterranean for a fish or other sea creature big enough to accommodate Jonah in its belly three days (Jonah 1:17). Meant indeed, among other things, to outshine 2 Kings 2:11, Luke's Ascension story is not World History but heilsgeschichte for the faithful. And the “disappearing feet” is not status confessionis for an Episcopalian in any event.
Nevertheless, in the Creed this morning we shall say “He ascended into heaven” so whence did Christ ascend?
If we must celebrate the Ascension, perhaps a better question is "what did the disciples see?" Or, what did Luke think they saw? Or what did Luke mean for his first and second century readers to get out of this story that medieval artists painted into a 21st century metaphor? Luke's story of the Ascension is rather late, found in oral tradition, or perhaps simply in Luke's romanticism, poetic license, appealing to our love of a story, and coming a couple of generations after the Resurrection; but Paul’s mention of early seeing Christ, 1 Corinthians 15:8 and Galatians 1:15-16, is compatible with his 1 Corinthians 15 teaching about a spiritual body. More, though the Acts 9 account is Luke’s story about Paul, not Paul’s personal report, it is not inconsistent with a “spiritual body.” And so, if we want to go somewhere with the ascending Christ, we might reasonably go “wherever” after all. A spiritual body to a spiritual destination.
A leap of faith.
If we must celebrate the Ascension, perhaps a better question is "what did the disciples see?" Or, what did Luke think they saw? Or what did Luke mean for his first and second century readers to get out of this story that medieval artists painted into a 21st century metaphor? Luke's story of the Ascension is rather late, found in oral tradition, or perhaps simply in Luke's romanticism, poetic license, appealing to our love of a story, and coming a couple of generations after the Resurrection; but Paul’s mention of early seeing Christ, 1 Corinthians 15:8 and Galatians 1:15-16, is compatible with his 1 Corinthians 15 teaching about a spiritual body. More, though the Acts 9 account is Luke’s story about Paul, not Paul’s personal report, it is not inconsistent with a “spiritual body.” And so, if we want to go somewhere with the ascending Christ, we might reasonably go “wherever” after all. A spiritual body to a spiritual destination.
A leap of faith.
Or we can simply enjoy the story.
God has gone up with a shout. (Psalm 47)
Sounds Reasonable. I’m good.
TW+
Various Art: Himmelfahrt Christi, 1350 and later, and Our Lady in Blue is the BVM.
Various Art: Himmelfahrt Christi, 1350 and later, and Our Lady in Blue is the BVM.