May 1: The Feast of the Ascension

Since my May parish newsletter did not arrive in the mail this week, this afternoon I stopped by my church in Lexington to ask if there might be an service tomorrow evening on Ascension Day, May 1. The parish secretary told me (with some sadness in her voice), "No, we used to have one, but not many people showed up, and we no longer have a service of worship on Ascension Day." Although I was disappointed to hear that not-so-good news, I was not surprised. The Feast of the Ascension is a celebration which, always falling on a Thursday, is slowly disappearing from the worship life of many congregations. We keep saying in the Creed that "He ascended into heaven," but we no longer regard that great event as important as the Incarnation, the Passion of Our Lord, and His Resurrection.

That doesn't mean, however, that in our daily prayers we too may forget that forty days after His Resurrection, Our Lord Jesus returned to His Father eternally so that he might live fully everywhere in His Church. To celebrate His return, this evening and tomorrow many Christians turn their thoughts to our Lord’s ascension and what it means to the Church, to the world, and to one personally. In his Letters and Papers from Prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “Today is Ascension Day, and that means that it is a day of great joy for all who can believe that Christ rules the world and our lives.”


Several years ago M. Basil Pennington, a Cistercian monk and one-time abbot visited me in Massachusetts and gave me, after a nearly day-long talk on the porch, a strong five-minute blessing with his big hands solidly on my head. His journals from trips to the Holy Land have just been published. After visiting the spot on Mount Olivet where Jesus is said to have ascended, Basil wrote:

It is good that Jesus ascended. His mission was complete. He gave us all. He deserves to sit on the right hand of the Father in glory. The reality of his Ascension gives us the courage to transcend ourselves and open us to divine contemplation. In Christ’s going ahead, we are assured that there is heaven for all of us humans, there is intimacy and at-homeness with the divine.

Basil’s right. Any desire for Jesus to live in a certain place with a single address is much like that desire of Peter, James, and John to domesticate the Transfiguration. But Jesus would have none of that so that "we can transcend ourselves."

The Ascension tells us that Jesus presents himself to us all at once in a multitude of ways: when we read and hear the Gospel, when we table with Him in our homes and churches, when we meet children, when we visit prisoners, when we put diapers on babies, dresses on women, and coats on men, when we stand for justice, when we work for peace, when we serve the poor, when we reach out to our enemies, when two or three of us come together and name Him. In other words: when we love one another.

And then there's this which Mark Harris announces: "The ascension proposes that Jesus Christ has taken a place above all the principalities and powers in the world. He has become that to which we turn in order to find meaning and fulfillment in living." In this sense the ascension is a key doctrine in these latter days. It is not one that super-patriots of any stripe, those who place their loyalties to nation about that of Christ, will like very much. If we turn to Paul, we see that he speaks of the "spirit of wisdom" by which to discern these things. If we use that spirit, we'll be led to proclaim Christ's absolute rule--not as king, but as one who feeds and sustains. Giving all other powers their due and their respect, in the final analysis we Christians cannot totally and without reservations embrace the flag, support the government, or pledge allegiance to the country for which they stand. Rather we end up having to say with Paul that Christ Jesus is "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." Perhaps the visual notion of the ascension is the movement of the Christ to the place at the head of the table as our great high priest, the head of the true state that is the Church, the Body of Christ of which Christians are all parts.

Image source: Ascension