THE ASCENSION OF THE LORD A

[cappie]

Strikingly, today’s Gospel reading doesn’t include the Ascension. We learn of it instead from the Acts reading.

“When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.” Today is the celebration of the feast of the Ascension. The book of Acts tells us that after Jesus’s resurrection, he spent forty days with the apostles. Then, after ordering them to wait for the Holy Spirit, he ascended into heaven. Quite a lot happens in only a few verses. Wrapped up in this story—given to us by the same author in both Luke and Acts—are bigger messages about the Holy Spirit, power, and the church. The passage offers a vital lesson about the nature of who God is. 

In today’s epistle reading, we find an explicit link between Jesus’s place at God’s right hand and the power he wields. The author of Ephesians prays that the church in Ephesus will come to know “the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at the right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.” This is lofty language, describing not just Jesus, but a vision of what is to come. Authority, power, and dominion—one would be hard-pressed to find language that soars higher than this in claiming for Christ a position of privilege and significance. The narrative of Christ’s ascension—and the theology behind it—speaks directly to how the church is meant to understand these concepts of power. 

The moment of the Ascension is a narrative act. It tells us where Jesus has gone: He has ascended to the right hand of God. But as the epistle explains, this is not merely a statement about cartographical coordinates. Jesus has not just gone “up.” It is primarily a theological statement about power and the Holy Spirit. The Ascension—and Jesus’s relocation to the right hand of God the Father—are eschatological events that break the church out of the natural flow of time and order, into a different mode of being in the world. 

When Jesus said to the disciples to go and baptise people in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Jesus actually asked his disciples to share with people worldwide. 

And he wants his disciples to share with the world that he never comes alone, but as one of the Trinity. This perfect communal relationship of the Son with the Father and the Spirit is visionary and empowering for him and for his disciples to spread the good news of the kingdom of God. 

At the Ascension, Christ leaves us in what may appear as abandonment. Yet our commission is given at the moment of his departure. We become Christians the moment we are thrown into this seemingly abandoned world. To live in this world is what it means to be a Christian in the first place.

And this—despite the evils that confront us—is why our joy, our witness, and our commission can survive the world. There may be no reassuring presence—no glimpse of heaven, no moment of perfect joy. But we know this already: we, as Christians, are born of it. 

As we celebrate the ascension of Jesus, we remember that he remains with us in the Spirit. It is in this spirit of Jesus that we are called to make the world a flourishing community centred in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

 We pray that we may always find ways to align our vision and mission in life with the vision and mission of Christ, a vision that is Trinitarian and community oriented. In whatever we do, may we remember Jesus, and he will show us the right way.