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| Hans Memling, Ascension c. 1490; Louvre, Paris |
Saint Martin’s Church, Providence
Acts 1:1-11
Luke 24:44-53
Our knowledge of Christ’s Ascension comes principally from Saint Luke’s Gospel, and from Luke’s sequel to that Gospel, the Acts of the Apostles. After his Resurrection, the Risen Christ appears to his disciples for a period of forty days. Then, at the village of Bethany on the Mount of Olives, in full view of the apostles, he lifts off from the earth and disappears into the clouds. Two angels appear, promising that Jesus will return in the same way he went into heaven. The apostles then return to Jerusalem, where they devote to themselves prayer and waiting for the promised Holy Spirit.
We don’t make nearly as much of the Ascension in the contemporary Church as we might. I suspect that many today find the imagery somewhat embarrassing, on the grounds that we no longer believe in a three-story universe, with hell downstairs, heaven upstairs, and us here in the middle. But it’s not clear that people in the biblical world believed in such a triple-decker universe either. They knew better than to think of God as located spatially somewhere “up there” in the sky. They understood perfectly well that God exists outside time and space as we know them. As King Solomon prayed at the dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem: “Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain thee …” (1 Kings 8:27).
While I’m no physicist, my understanding is that post-Newtonian cosmology—with its relativity, black holes, worm holes, and parallel universes—affords plenty of room for movement between one kind of space-time and another. The visual image of Jesus disappearing into the clouds signifies his transition from our created realm of time and space into God’s uncreated realm of eternity. Just as he once entered this world to take human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary, so now he returns to his Father taking with him the fullness of his humanity and divinity. And who’s to say that the Ascension didn’t happen pretty much as Luke describes it? To rule it out a priori would be narrow-minded indeed.
This evening, however, I want to focus on an oft-neglected aspect of Christ’s Ascension: namely, his enthronement. At the Ascension Jesus takes his place at the right hand of his Father in heaven. The New Testament states this in multiple places: for example, in the First Letter of Peter, who writes of “the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him” (3:21-22). The Feast of the Ascension thus pairs naturally with the Feast of Christ the King, celebrated annually in the Church’s Calendar on the Last Sunday after Pentecost.
The New Testament makes it clear that from his birth Jesus is a king—albeit not after the pattern of earthly monarchies. In Matthew, when the Wise Men come from the East bearing their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, they ask: “Where is he who has been born King of the Jews?” (2:2) In the first chapter of John’s Gospel, when Philip brings Nathanael to meet Jesus, Nathanael ends up exclaiming: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel!” (1:49) When Jesus makes his Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the crowds who greet him cry out: “Blessed is the King who comes in the Name of the Lord” (Luke 19:38).
In all four Gospel accounts of his trial and crucifixion, Jesus is charged with having claimed to be a king, and the inscription on the cross proclaims, “The King of the Jews.” He never denies the charge, though in John he offers the clarification, “My kingship is not of this world” (18:36). Moreover, the very title “Christ,” meaning Messiah or “Anointed One,” identifies Jesus throughout the New Testament as bearing the threefold office of Prophet, Priest, and King.
So, if Jesus has been King all along, what’s the significance of his Ascension? It seems to me that the practice of monarchical succession, even in the modern world, affords a loose analogy. In a constitutional monarchy such as the United Kingdom, when the reigning monarch dies, the successor is proclaimed almost immediately: “The King is dead; long live the Queen!” Legally, the successor is the new monarch from the very second of the predecessor’s death. Even so, there’s always an interim period of waiting and preparation, sometimes as long as a year, before the coronation.
The American Presidency follows a somewhat different pattern. When a new President is elected, the victorious candidate becomes President-elect from the moment an undisputed election result is announced, usually a day or so after the election. But then there’s always that interim period before Inauguration Day, when the new President takes the oath and enters into the duties of office. This interim period is a time of preparation: of assembling a cabinet and forming an Administration-in-waiting.
The forty days between Christ’s Resurrection and his Ascension can be understood as such an interim period. His conquest of sin and death has confirmed that he’s indeed king, not just of Israel but of the entire cosmos. In his Resurrection appearances he teaches his disciples and prepares them for their mission to the world. Only then does he take his place at God’s right hand in heaven. Ascension Day is thus something like Coronation Day or Inauguration Day.
What, then, does all this mean for us, here and now? Well, the first implication is that in the Risen and Ascended Christ we have a King who is alive and reigning over all creation. No longer confined to the local presence of his human body on earth, he becomes available to each of us, in all times and places, wherever and whenever we most need him. At my parish of S. Stephen, on the masthead of our website and email communications, we quote the words of the Protomartyr himself at the critical moment of his trial before the Sanhedrin: “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56). The Ascension reminds us that the heart of Christianity is not the memory of a first-century rabbi and his inspirational teachings, but rather communion and fellowship with a living Lord and a reigning King.
The second implication follows closely from the first. If Jesus is our King, then we’re called to be his loyal subjects and servants: literally, his ministers in the world. As members of his Body, the Church, we’ve been commissioned as heralds and agents of his reign on earth: a reign of forgiveness and reconciliation; a reign of justice, love, and peace.
We cannot fulfill this calling by our own unaided efforts. But the Ascension makes Pentecost possible. Having taken his place at God’s right hand, Christ pours out the Holy Spirit upon his Church on earth, empowering us for the ministry of his kingdom. But that is to get ahead of ourselves. This evening, we rejoice that Christ our King has ascended far above all heavens that he might fill all things; and we pray for the grace to continue his faithful servants until the day of his return.
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