Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
It's been about five months since we welcomed Jesus into the fully human life on this earth. Now we are on the other side of that event, seeing Jesus off at the ascension. We have Luke, primarily, both in the Gospel and in the Acts of the Apostles to thank for this.
We don’t see Jesus in the flesh after this. Jesus has assured us that if he goes, then he will send the Holy Spirit for the next part of the journey. So, let's talk about what this may mean...But first, let's talk about the number forty.
This number turns up in scripture fairly frequently. Forty days in the wilderness for Jesus after baptism... forty years in the wilderness for the people of Israel after they escape Egypt... forty days and nights of rain for Noah... And hiding behind the scenes in today’s feast is the number forty... Jesus rises on Easter and Ascends on this day, forty days later.
It’s clear that forty is symbolic. It's just not so clear what it symbolizes. Forty was thought of as a number for reflection and change of heart – hence forty days in the desert for Jesus and forty days of Lent (exclusive of Sundays and feast days) for us.
It was an appropriate number for punishment – if you were administering lashes, forty was the maximum number permitted in Jewish law. Often, we hear of someone condemned to forty lashes minus one – for example Paul received this punishment on a number of occasions. One lash was withheld as a little insurance policy for those administering the punishment. If you miscounted your lashes, you still might not have broken God’s law...
Forty figured into pregnancy in two ways. It was thought to take forty days for the “seed” to take root in the womb (this was a pre-medical view of pregnancy) and forty weeks for the child to be formed and ready for birth. These days we think of thirty-nine as the number of weeks in a pregnancy but forty was the number used in Biblical times. Pregnancy hasn’t changed, but we start counting at a different point... And the notion of a seed taking root in the womb has gone completely.
We heard most of what Luke had to say about the Ascension in this morning’s readings.
Matthew hints at the Ascension, but just in passing on the way to the “Great Commission”. Matthew wants us to get down to the business of evangelism... of sharing the good news.
Luke is a little more patient; we are allowed to stand in awe looking up at the sky in wonder – for a short time even to worship – though Luke certainly calls us to share the Gospel as well.
Luke foreshadows the Ascension. In the twentieth chapter of the Luke’s Gospel Jesus says to Mary Magdalene: “Do not cling to me, because I have not yet ascended. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my God and your God.’” Luke is so concerned about the Ascension that he must tell us it is coming and then tell the story in both the Gospel and Acts.
As written, this is the story of Jesus literally being lifted up from the earth, through the clouds, to the right hand of God in heaven. This assumes an understanding of the universe in three tiers – the underworld, the world, and the heavens. The blue of our sky was understood to be the blue jewels that made up the floor of heaven – lapis lazuli.
Within a century or so of the Ascension, some theologians were already concerned that the “three-tiered universe” was out of date. Origen, for example, seems to have found it an embarrassment. By his time, the universe was no longer understood to be a three-tiered confection.
But here we are, on Ascension Day, a day that is built on the notion of Jesus being lifted up from tier two to tier three as a crowd watches. Do we suspend our scientific knowledge to accept the literal nature of this event? Do we swallow hard and cross our fingers as Origin might have done?
Our Brother Andrew, of blessed memory, had a fond saying. Being a good Scotsman, he loved all things Celtic. He would begin a fantastical Celtic story with a disclaimer: “It may not have happened exactly this way, but this is the truth.” Certainly, not all truth is literal.
In truth, all mythology is based on truth that is not literal. Our modern society is greatly impoverished because we want to understand anything that is not literal truth as a falsehood. We use “myth” and “lie” pretty much interchangeably. But myth and lie are not synonyms. As Br Andrew would remind us, it may not have happened exactly like this, but this is the truth.
Jesus is not the first person to be Assumed bodily. Enoch and Elijah were both Assumed. Some of the leaders of the Roman State were assumed to be Assumed. The Greeks believed that Apollonius was Assumed. And not too long ago the Roman Church determined officially that Mary, Mother of Jesus, was Assumed.
In the Zoroastrian tradition, the Hindu tradition, and Islamic tradition there is a belief that certain important leaders were Assumed.
So, nudged on by Br Andrew, I ask myself, what might the truth of Jesus’ Ascension be?
Charles King, in his book “Every Valley”, looks at how Georg Friedrich Handle created his great masterpiece “Messiah”. He describes Handle’s process as “the working out in music of a purposeful, systematic, and moral imagination of things you can’t yet see.” Handle’s purpose was not to create a pleasing setting for certain passages of scripture, but to create a space for our moral imaginations to work. Could this be Luke’s purpose as well?
Luke gives few answers about the Ascension. Did Jesus float – or was there some mechanism of lifting? What happened at twenty-six thousand feet, when the atmosphere was no longer breathable? But I have to stop myself and remember the wisdom of Br Andrew. And to allow Handel to whisper in my ear to use my moral imagination.
The Assumption of Jesus suggests an intimacy with God in Heaven that is unique. I have an expectation of Heaven after I die – I’m just not at all sure what I expect... who or what I will be in that context, or even what that context will be. Jesus, we trust, knew more... knows more. And we don’t know what Jesus knows...
We believe that our broken human nature is transformed in heaven – that strife and greed will be in us no more, that pain and sorrow will be ours no more, that as Isaiah saw, the wolf and the lamb can lie down together; that as Martin Luther King dreamed, all of God’s children can play together without hurting each other. My literal imagination can do little with these images. But my moral imagination can do much.
There is a reason for using all our imaginative abilities, moral, literal, artistic, and so forth to see, in our mind’s eye, heaven. Heaven may not be like what we see, but that doesn't mean it's not true.
I am reminded of the words of Father Daniel Berrigan, Roman Catholic Priest and powerful voice against the Vietnam war. I had the chance to hear him speak across the river at Bard College. A student asked him, given his vision of what the world could be, how he could live in the world the way it is.
Fr Berigan answered that he lived in a community, a Jesuit community, that while far from perfect still managed now and then to give glimpses of what heaven could be. And it was that vision that made it possible to live in our very imperfect world. He had a moral imagination that allowed him to see glimpses of heaven.
When the Disciples are pestering Jesus to tell them about heaven his answer is – don't worry about heaven... it’s a very big place. Worry about here and now.
When the Sadducees are trying to trick Jesus with a question about how marriage works in heaven, Jesus replies that marriage as we understand it is not a thing in heaven.
Jesus seems to be assuring them that they (and we) don’t need to have a moral imagination of heaven. We need to have a moral imagination, a moral vision, of this world, of Earth.
Just before he goes, Jesus tells the disciples to be clothed with power from on high; and after that, to share the good news of salvation with all the world. This power from on high sounds a bit mysterious, perhaps even threatening. But it is a reference to the Holy Spirit – the third person of the trinity. Jesus has been hinting about this Holy Spirit, the Advocate, the Comforter, for some time. And Jesus has made clear that when he goes, then the Holy Spirit will come. This is that moment.
I don’t have a need for this story to be literally true. I do have a need to ignore, or at least discount, that part of my mind that wants to argue with the literal details. When we force things to adhere to our literal understanding, we limit them to what our minds can understand.
Perhaps the most curious thing for me about the Ascension is the urgent warning Jesus gives to Mary – do not cling to me... I hear Jesus telling Mary not to hold on too tightly to the Jesus she has known, the earthly, human literal Jesus. Doing so will inhibit her ability to welcome the Holy Spirit. And, frankly, the Jesus she will come to know is much greater than the Jesus she has known. This is the Jesus we come to know as well, if we don’t hold too tightly to what we think we know.
The person of Jesus in flesh and blood is relatable, even loveable. The amorphous holy spirit is much harder to get our arms around – literally and figuratively...
But we must let go of our images of Jesus so that we can open ourselves to the Holy Spirit who dwells in us and around us. It is faith that leads us toward this unknown region.
And this unknown region is nothing less than the land where Martin Luther King observed all of God’s children playing together... where Isaiah watched lambs lie down with lions... where John of Patmos could see twelve city gates – three in every direction... Gates that are open all day and there is no night.
It is nothing less than the Kingdom of God. It is nothing less than our home.
