Reflection by Rev'd Dr Deborah Broome

biancasnee
May 29
3 min read

Where he is, we are: Ascension is good news for humanity

Then Jesus said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised, so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple blessing God.

Luke 24:44-53

Every year as the Easter season draws to a close and we’re getting ready to celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, we pause for the feast of Ascension. In a way, this period is like Advent: a time to wait and prepare ourselves for something that’s about to happen. But Ascension has value in itself: it tells us Jesus reigns in heaven, and we represent him on earth. It’s easy, though, to get distracted by what can seem like a three decker universe, Jesus being lifted up and a cloud taking him out of the disciples’ sight. But this is one of those “let’s not be dumb enough to take this literally” moments. Luke tells this story twice: at the end of his Gospel (in the passage above), and at the beginning of his second volume, the Book of Acts, when it looks ahead to what he says about the nature and work of the church. The stories are different: it’s clear Luke’s preaching, not reporting. In Acts Jesus’ ascension into heaven happens 40 days after the resurrection, in the Gospel of Luke the Ascension happens on Easter Day itself: a clue that a literal reading of the narratives in Luke-Acts might not be what the author had in mind. No spaceship-Jesus then.

Just before Jesus’ teaching that begins this passage, gathered together in the evening of Easter Day, he eats a piece of fish to reassure the disciples that he’s not a ghost, that he’s a real flesh and blood person. The God we worship is one who understands humanity from the inside. Ours is an incarnational faith. God becoming human, the Word becoming flesh, moving into the neighbourhood, pitching a tent amongst us.

And it’s this person that somehow (we don’t know how) is “carried up into heaven.” When Jesus ascends into heaven his body – all his flesh, all his humanity – went there. Ascension tells us something about Christ, and about where Christ now is: at the right hand of God. And in him our humanity is there too. This is a huge pointer to the importance of human existence, and of the created world as a whole. In Christ our embodied selves are welcomed into the throne-room of heaven.

Our Prayer Book’s service of Morning Prayer on Thursdays contains a passage from the Letter to the Ephesians:

You O God are rich in mercy: out of the great love with which you loved us,

even when we were dead through our sins: you made us alive together with Christ.

You raised us up in union with him:

and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

so that you might show the immeasurable riches of your grace:

in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.

This is good news indeed!