Friday, April 10

Scripture: Acts 1:6-11, John 20:30
So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book.

THE ASCENSION
Although recently attended to by theologians, it still remains the case that Jesus’ ascension is the least talked about central doctrine of orthodox faith. There is a whole industry of expert voices articulating and defending the fact and hope of resurrection. This is the confidence that Paul expresses in 1 Corinthians 15. What is less obvious to those who encounter missionary Christianity is the intrinsic connection of resurrection and ascension. Today’s painting gives us some of the reason for that disconnect. There is a grown man floating in the air! The observing disciples seem moved in deeply physical ways but otherwise the pastoral idyll of rural landscape remains unchanged, tidy farmhouse in the background. And so it seems with the doctrine itself: an article of faith that doesn’t really do anything at all. It’s a curious, nearly two thousand year old, levitation trick.

Of course the clouds tell us this is no ordinary levitation. The cloud is biblically the vehicle for God’s ineffable presence in our place—never contained but fully present. Dr. Stephen Long in his commentary on Hebrews writes that the sacred space apocalyptically opened up to us in confessing Christ’s ascension and exaltation is all but lost to our contemporary disenchanted imaginations. It endures perhaps in children’s fiction where Narnia is still accessible through the wardrobe, yet even in that genre the Wizard of Oz turns out to be a circus performer.

Failure to imaginatively confess Christ’s ascended continuing incarnation is a failure to allow his rule into our social imaginary. If our cosmology is unbelieving as we look up toward the place of heaven and see only outer space, (how would Jesus breathe?) then our engaging in mission in service to our King will be necessarily truncated. We will deny Christ’s bodily ascension as we make mission purely spiritual.

But Christ’s ascension is of a piece with his resurrection. It is also the material answer to the disciple’s needful question about the establishment of God’s rule. Kingdom comes as Jesus, the anointed King, ascends to assume the heavenly throne at the right hand of God. Ascension and awaited Second Advent also point us to the divine forbearance of royal judgment in favor of the convicting missionary judgment of the Holy Spirit. The time of Jesus’ ascension and exaltation in continued heavenly session is the time of mission. The good news of his reign is spoken publicly to all from the very powerful to the very least, authorized by his reign and empowered by his Spirit. The work on earth is done, “It is finished,” even as the work of witnessing to that work and living in its light is still always to be done until Christ’s return.

So as we consider mission holistically, the physicality of ascension is also to the point. Rather than a wan note of confession with no substance, Jesus’ ascension asserts the eternal heavenly reception of humanity in full embodiment. The everlastingly incarnate Lord models the nearness of those who belong to his kingdom, to the Father. Just so, we in our bodies, celebrating the victory of Easter, celebrate kingdom in looking for righteousness and peace in our lives.  We don’t overlook our physical or intellectual embodied differences of ability, skin color, or physique. Rather, we imagine the unimaginable as we are called to peaceably (“as the Father has sent me so I send you”) negotiate his kingdom rule by our witness in the intersectional complexity of lives shaped by gender, class, sexuality, privilege and oppression, sin and repentance.

PRAYER
Father, enable us by your Spirit, to confess your Son’s glorious ascension and exalted rule as an opening of our eyes to mission in all its complexity. As we long for our Lord’s return keep us jostling along in our bodies as, and alongside, those who need to hear kingdom proclamation and receive the hospitable and healing touch of kingdom welcome and reconciliation.
Amen.

Andy Draycott, Professor, Biblical & Theological Studies