Ascension of the Lord
The Presbyterian Worship Planner (Year B, pp 326-327) gives a fine description of the dilemma that faces Christians as we approach the season of Ascension. I quote its statement in full:
"The festival of the Ascension is endlessly problematic (for Christians) and admits of no simple or single 'explanation.' It is clear in these texts that the church struggled to voice a reality that ran beyond all its explanatory categories. We must take care that we do not engage in domestication that curbs the wonder and wildness of these texts.
"The presenting problem is, on the one hand, the disposal of the
body of Jesus, what happened to Jesus after Easter. That, however, is a small agenda. On the other hand, the continuation of the church when Jesus is no longer present is an acute issue. Thus the issue in the narrative is much more a church question than it is a Jesus question. That presenting problem, however, only provides "cover" for the larger story. That story is that this fearful, waiting community, which is anxious and bewildered, has no power of its own. It possesses none and it can generate none for itself. It has no claim and no cause for self-congratulation. And yet, oddly, power is given that causes this fragile little community to have energy, courage, imagination,
and resources completely disproportionate to its size. How can one speak about this changed situation that can only be attributed to the inscrutable generosity of God? How is it that this church with no claim becomes a powerful force in the larger scheme of public life?
"The church has no special language of its own through which to
utter the unutterable. For that reason, it must rely on its ancient doxological tradition (in the Psalms), which breaks out beyond reasoned explanation into wonder, awe, amazement, and gratitude. Worship is the arena in which the new power given the church by God is voiced. And that lyrical worship leads to glad witness, asserting that the world is oddly open to new governance. . . . The nature of the story requires a peculiar
mode of utterance. The narrative lets us see in wonderment glimpses and hints, but not more. God's new rule is beyond our logic. We see only its residue and effect in a transformed community. That community is not certain what has happened, but is sure enough to affirm its identity and embrace its proper work."
Five different texts will take us into the experience of Jesus' ascension. One is from Acts, two are from Psalms, one is from the Letter to the Ephesians, and the last is from the Gospel of Luke.
ACTS 1:1-14: To see the force of this passage, we need to look at it verse-by-verse.
The first five verses of the book summarize what had been said before in the Gospel of Luke and help to prepare us for what is to come. In the first book, O Theophilus - The name Theophilus means "lover of "God," almost "Christian reader." Whether Theophilus was a person to whom the book was addressed, or merely a type of the persons to whom Luke wanted to tell the story of the Christian church is a question much debated by scholars. There is no way to come to a definitive answer to this question.
I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach - This was the subject of the first book that Luke wrote, the Gospel of Luke. The Gospel and the Acts are related in that the same person wrote them and that the second is the continuation of the story of the first.
2 until the day when he was taken up - This is the day of Ascension, which is the subject of these texts.
after he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. Luke, alone in the New Testament, assumes that the "twelve" who followed Jesus through Galilee and came with him to Jerusalem were the same as the "apostles" who carried his message through the world. But Barnabas was called an apostle, and so was Paul, and they were not among the original twelve. Luke's identification seems too simple. The "twelve" constituted one distinctive group who followed Jesus, and the "apostles" were another. Note that his followers are "chosen." They did not choose to follow Jesus. Jesus chose them to be his followers. The "commandment given to them" probably meant "the commandment given to them to come together and to wait for the return of the Lord to them."
3 To them he presented himself alive after his passion by many proofs - The word for "presented" is used only here in the New Testament. It is also used in the Septuagint, Numbers 14:14, for Yahweh's being in the midst of the people of Israel in the wilderness. In Numbers, this self-manifestation of God takes place as the people "see the Lord face to face" and God's "cloud stands over them."
"The many proofs" are Jesus' appearances to his followers in his resurrection. Luke would have in mind especially those appearances that he records in his gospel.
appearing to them during forty days - Ever since the people of Israel had spent forty years in the wilderness, "forty" was a sacred number for Israelites, speaking of the manner in which God prepared his own for later ministry. Jesus' early and earthly ministry began with forty days of preparation in the wilderness, during which he was tempted by Satan. This later ministry, in which Jesus is with his people not in body but in spirit, begins with a similar preparation.
and speaking of the kingdom of God. Jesus had begun his ministry by announcing that "The Kingdom of God is at hand." As he opens this new phase of ministry, he continues the earlier theme.
4 And while staying with them - This is a rare word from a root that can mean "crowded, eating salt together, lodging together." It might even mean "camping with them in the open," the military term "to bivuoac," as according to Lk 21:37 Jesus had stayed with his disciples in the week before his crucifixion.
he charged them not to depart from Jerusalem - Jerusalem was of course the central city of Judaism, the city where David and his descendants had reigned, the site of the Temple, the place where every Jewish person wanted to eat the Passover ("next year in Jerusalem," they said to each other). When Jesus came to Jerusalem, he foretold its doom; he wrestled in prayer; he was tried, sentenced, and executed. Now in Jerusalem he is about to complete his victory. This city of destiny was to be the center of the mission of Jesus Christ through the Christian Church.
but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, "you heard from me" - This was the promise that God would bring to completion what God had begun in the ministry of Jesus, a ministry which began when Jesus was baptized at the hands of John the Baptist.
5 for John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit." The church continued to baptize with water as John had done; both the Ethiopian eunuch and the centurian Cornelius were baptized with water. But that was not the only baptism the church experienced. The Spirit of God in Jesus Christ worked itself through and through the church, and the story of Acts is the story of the spirit directing the church in its ministry.
In composing this opening paragraph of Acts, wrote D. W. PALMER, ("The Literary Background of Acts 1.1-14," NTStud 33 (3, '87) 427-438), Luke combined features of four main literary forms -- prologue, appearance (epiphany), farewell scene, and assumption (ascension) -- in order to create a unified introduction to Acts as a whole.
6 So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" The disciples were still operating under the theory that the most important facet of Jesus' ministry was "to restore the Kingdom to Israel." They had in mind that he would gather the twelve tribes together and, as David had done before him, be their king. They also assumed that each of the twelve disciples would be head of one of the tribes. That Jesus had been crucified on a charge of "being King of the Jews" had not altered their belief.
7 Jesus said to them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority." Jesus' response to them was in a quite different mode. "You will not know the times and seasons that the Father has fixed." "Times and seasons," in Greek, means "regular times and crucial times." No wonder it has to be changed in our English translations to give it some meaning. Philo of Alexandria, writing about the time of Jesus, had mentioned a pagan sect that identified "God and time" as one. This made "time" the cause of all the crucial events that took place in human life. Against this, Philo had insisted that the kairoi and the chronoi, the times and seasons, derive from God, that God alone controls the crucial events in human life. Luke, educated man that he was, may have known of his reference. It supports Jesus' insistence that God alone knows when these great things shall occur. Speculation on our part is both unnecessary and unfaithful.
Now God rules not through a king like David but through a crucified Servant. Such an unexpected ruler, as one scholar said, constitutes a fundamental critique on the desperate manner in which the Roman empire tried to rule over human lives. It also, he added, discloses the power of God's grace, which transcends our comprehension and transforms our tragic human errors into a new occasion for the gift of repentance unto forgiveness of sin.
8 "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. The Holy Spirit is the continuing presence of Christ in earthly affairs. The physical Jesus has been taken from us, but the person and character of Jesus remains with us. The Holy Spirit will play many roles in the Book of Acts. The spirit of Christ will gather the church together and protect it, guide it in its ministry and permit it to demonstrate in its life that the real Christ is still present with us in this world.
You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth." This seems to be the program of the church: to begin in Jerusalem, move into all Judea and Samaria (though little is said about the mission to Samaria, other than in the Gospel of John and in Acts 8:4-25), and then go to the ends of the earth. Luke sees this happening through the ministry of Paul, who was directed to leave the areas of Judea and Samaria and go beyond into the Roman provinces of Asia and Macedonia and then on to Rome itself.
A scholar named Barackman, (Interpretation, April 59, 178) put it well. Three things, he noted, serve as keys to the subsequent life of the church: 1) Christ's presence. Wherever they went their lord was with them. 2) Christ's promise. Their first duty was to wait for the gift of the spirit. They lacked wisdom, insight, but they were to wait for the promised gift. 3) Christ's program. They were to begin where they were, in the most difficult place of all, Jerusalem, but they were to go to the ends of the earth. The program Jesus laid before his disciples was open-ended; they were going out, but they did not know what would happen to them or through them. Jesus supplied their motive force: "You shall receive power." He gave them their direction: you will go to Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.
According to Acts, these are the last words that the resurrected Christ spoke to his disciples.
9 And when he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. This ninth verse is, admittedly, the hardest part of this passage to understand. The "cloud," of course, we have met before, in Jesus' transfiguration (you might want to look again at "Transfiguration" under theological themes) and during the time Moses was leading the Hebrews from Egypt to the Promised Land. The cloud is an expression of the presence of God. John Calvin said the cloud is needed to bridle our curiosity; it serves as a reminder of the distance between God and us. Calvin added: "When Christ is said to be in heaven, we must not view him as dwelling among the spheres and numbering the stars. It is not literally a place beyond the world, but we cannot speak of the kingdom of God without using our ordinary language." Martin Luther commented: "The right hand of God is everywhere. We must not think of Christ as someone who lolls in heaven and has fun with the angels. The right hand of God simply means Christ's active reigning lordship."
10 And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, 11 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." "Two men," not "two angels, stood beside them to say these words. They said that Jesus would come to them in the same way that he had departed from them. It was as the resurrected Christ that Jesus left them. It is as the resurrected Christ that he will return to them.
12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day's journey away. The mountain called Olive, said Howard Kee, is a high hill about a mile long, paralleling and overlooking the temple mount, from which it is separated by the Kidron Valley. Since it is over 200 feet higher than the temple hill, the activities in the temple courts were plainly visible from there. From the top of its ridge one can also see eastward down into the Wilderness of Judea and the roads leading up from Jericho. Jesus is said to have pronounced judgment on Jerusalem from that hill (Luke 19:37-44). Ezekiel pictured the cloud of God's glory resting there as it departed from Jerusalem (Ezek. 11:22-23). The prophet Zechariah expected God to return there to reestablish his rule in Jerusalem (Zech 14:1-9). It was from a village on this hill, Bethany, that the ascension is said to have occurred (Luke 24:50). Obeying Jesus, the group returned the 3,637 feet back to the city that constituted the "Sabbath day's journey.
13 And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying. The upper room may have been the upper reaches of the house in Jerusalem to which they had come while they were in the Holy City for the Passover. It may have been the quarters of the women of the party; women were always relegated to "upper rooms" where they would not be clearly visible and where they had very little freedom to move around the outer streets. It may have been a little tent-like affair built on the roof of a house, where people would come for rest and prayer. Or, most likely, it was the room where the disciples had observed that last meal with Jesus before he was betrayed and crucified. We can only imagine the thoughts that circled around their minds as they entered the upper room.
Those who gathered there were Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James. These are known to us from earlier in Luke's gospel, the disciples whom Jesus had called. The names are repeated to assure the continuity of this group with those who had been with Jesus while he was in Galilee and who had witnessed his resurrection. In the group also were the women (presumably those who had been around the tomb and witnessed his resurrection) and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
14 All these with one accord devoted themselves to prayer. The prayers may have been the prayers of the synagogue or of the home. They may also have been the prayers of the temple, the two set hours for morning and evening prayer. That it was their custom to go to the temple to pray is clear from the third chapter of Acts: Peter and John went to the Temple for the morning prayers. There they find the spirit of Jesus still active in healing the crippled man.
It must have come as a shock to these first Christians to have Jesus leave them. They had expected that he would establish an earthly kingdom. Instead he went away, and his appearances were no more. The Christian life, they found, is lived in hope -- between "no longer" and " not yet" - a life that rules out complacency. Now the cloud, then the sunlight. As Karl Barth was to say, "The empty grave makes us look down to see the end of one age. The ascension makes us look up to see what is to come."
PSALM 47: Terrien, (The Psalms and Their Meaning for Today, 77) tells us that "this psalm is generally designated as a 'Hymn of the Enthronement of Yahweh.' It refers to a dramatic ceremony which may have taken place at the celebration of the New Year festival, during which the worshipers acclaimed the kingship of their heavenly Lord over the universe and all the nations of the earth. . . . Possibly the Israelites used a ritual derived from the anointing of earthly monarchs. It seems likely that Ps. 47 was composed in order to celebrate the kingship of God at the occasion of the New Year festival."
The psalm is divided into two parts, two strophes. The first describes God as the great king who rules over the earth, who subdued the peoples over which Israel ruled, who chose Jacob (Israel) as the people he loves. Then the trumpet sounds in the sanctuary (47:5), and the people are called on to sing praises to God.
Five times the command goes out: "Sing praises, sing praises, sing praises: to our God, to our King, to the King of all the earth. "God reigns" - this is the key phrase - "God reigns and sits on his holy throne." God is enthroned in Israel and in all the earth.
It is this "enthronement" that ties this psalm into Jesus' ascension. In his ascension Jesus is exalted as the king who sits on the right hand of the Throne of Power. He too in enthroned over all people and over all the earth. But who is this Jesus who is enthroned? He is not one who used the sword or other usual means of earthly power to subdue the people. He is the King who suffers and the sufferer who is King. Only through his suffering can he subdue the hardened hearts of those who people this earth.
PSALM 93: This psalm is also an enthronement psalm, and it is included in our celebration of Ascension for the reasons mentioned above. "The Lord reigns," it begins. "He is robed in majesty, he is girded with strength." The psalmist claims that the God's rule is like the world: it has been established, and it will never be moved.
Then the psalmist recalls that the floods of waters do move the earth, change its contours, reshape the mountains and the valleys. His insight incorporates this idea and transcends it: "God is mightier than the thunders of many rivers, mightier than the waves of the sea." Even the roaring of the flood praise God. The God of heaven and earth, sky and sea is God the mighty one.
Verse 5 seems to be an addition to the psalm. It speaks of a time when, with Isaiah, God was viewed as the holy one, and, later, with the followers of Ezra, God's decrees were deemed to be very sure. These ideas important to Judaism were incorporated into this psalm.
EPHESIANS 1:15-23: Ephesians is one of the most difficult writings in the New Testament to categorize. It claims Paul as its author, but it may not be addressed specifically to the Christians in Ephesus. There are two variant readings in the ancient manuscripts of the this letter. One, followed by the translators of the New Revised Standard Version of the New Testament, reads, "To all the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Jesus Christ." The translators of the Revised Standard Version turned to another ancient manuscript which simply read, "To the saints who are also faithful in Christ Jesus." The question is important in terms of the persons addressed by this letter: Was it addressed only to the Christians in Ephesus, or was it addressed to a wider audience: "All the saints who are faithful in Christ Jesus"? I opt for the latter translation. This letter is addressed to all Christians who put their faith in Jesus Christ.
Nowhere in the New Testament is the Christ in whom we put our trust more clearly delineated for us than in the verses at hand.
Christ is the one through whom we receive our knowledge of God. What we know of God we know through Jesus Christ. To know God in Christ we need a receptive spirit that will receive God's wisdom and revelation of himself. Christ gives us this warm-hearted spirit. Through Christ we know what God is doing in this world, what God says to the people of this world, what God expects us to do. When Christ's spirit meets our spirit, we receive the spirit of God in Christ.
Christ brings us hope for this world and hope for the world to come. Christ holds the hope of life eternal before us. Christ also brings into this life the same power that raised Christ from the dead - the power to overcome the forces of evil; the power to bring to each other the compassion, mercy, and justice that is in Christ; the power to enjoy the riches of spirit found in the Christian community.
Christ is ruler of all. Paul says that Christ has in his hands "all rule and authority and power and dominion." These words may be synonymous. Taken together, they mean all the powers of this world: the power of kings and empires, the power of merchants and economic systems, the power of all philosophies and religions. Each of these exercise power in this world, but the power of Christ surpasses theirs. Christ is King over all other rulers, he is lord over the ways we use our wealth, he is the truth that philosophies and religions aspire to. All these lesser powers are accountable to him and are judged by the standards of compassion and justice by which Christ lives.
Christ is head of the church. The church is his hands and feet, his voice and his ears, but he is its head. From the head comes the spirit that animates the church. From the head comes the direction the church must go. From the head comes the strength of moral character the church must exhibit. The church is the body of Christ; but it is that only so long as the head that energizes it is its living Lord, Jesus Christ himself.
For these reasons Paul does not cease to give thanks to God. He remembers in his prayers his Christian brothers and sisters. He addresses his prayers of thanksgiving to God through Jesus Christ who brings the power of God - the power that raised from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ - into our own lives today.
These last verses relate this passage to the celebration of the Ascension: 20 God raised Christ from the dead and made him sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 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 that which is to come; 22 and he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, 23 which is his body, the fulness of him who fills all in all.
LUKE 24:44-53: This scene takes us into Jerusalem to the room where the disciples of Jesus have gathered after his crucifixion. The two men from Emmaus have rushed back into the city and have reported to the assembled group that the risen Lord had met them and was known to them in the breaking of the bread. They learn the equally astonishing news: "The Lord has arisen indeed and has appeared to Simon!" (Lk 24:34) Doubt and hope: it is in the vortex of these feelings that our scene begins.
Immediately Jesus himself stood among them. Instead of quieting their doubts and affirming their hopes, his appearance startled and frightened them. They thought that they were seeing a ghost. Recognizing their troubles and questionings, Jesus took steps to meet their doubts.
First, he showed them his hands and feet and invited them to touch them. They did not, of course. Seeing his flesh and bones was enough. Then he asked if they had anything to eat. They gave him a piece of broiled fish, like that which he had eaten with them in the feeding of the multitude, and in their presence he ate it. He had eaten bread with the men of Emmaus. Now he ate fish with the eleven in Jerusalem. As he ate the bread and the fish before them, they knew him.
But Jesus knew that proofs of his resurrection do not depend upon the physical evidence of flesh and bones, or even eating bread and fish. As Alan Culpepper wrote in the New Interpreters Bible 9:480, "The resurrection is not subject to empirical proof or rational verification. The experience of the presence of the risen Lord led the disciples to see that he had been raised, and the experience of the individual believer and the community of believers is still the foundation of faith. Where the Lord's physical hands and feet are no longer present, the ministry of the hands of countless saints in simple and sincere ministries continues to bear witness to the Lord's living presence. Although he may not appear in our midst to eat broiled fish, his presence is tangible in soup kitchens, around the kitchen table, and around the altar table. We see him 'in the breaking of bread.' As in the first century so now the most convincing proof of the resurrection is the daily testimony of the faithful that the Christ still lives, and the work of his kingdom continues."
Jesus' commands to his disciples acknowledge that. He instructed them to read the Scriptures with an open mind. In Scripture - in the law, the prophets, and the psalms - they would find those things that are written about him. He commanded them to preach repentance and forgiveness of sin in his name to all the nations. He said, "Be my witnesses in your lives, for the promise of my father is upon you, and you will be clothed with power from on high."
Then he led them out to Bethany. Bethany was the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. It was the village from which he had come as he entered Jerusalem for the week of Passover. It was on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, facing away from Jerusalem. There he lifted up his hands to bless them. At the beginning of the Gospel of Luke, Simeon had held the child Jesus in his arms and blessed God for him. Now at the end Jesus returns the blessing. About to leave his disciples, he blesses them. On the strength of his blessing, these formerly terrified men and women can return to Jerusalem with great joy and go day after day into the temple to bless God.