Thursday ninth May is Ascension Day, which is a public holiday in lots of countries. This is the story.
Ascension
The English word ascension comes from Latin via Norman French. The English word ‘to ascend’ means to go up, and an ‘ascent’ the means of doing it. In English we talk in regards to the ‘ascent’ of Mount Everest or an individual’s ‘ascension to the presidency’. In theology, ascension is the concept some individuals ascend to heaven without dying first, or die first and are bodily resurrected and brought into heaven.
Ascension within the Jewish Scriptures
In the Bible the thought of ascension is usually applied to Enoch, who was Noah’s great-grandfather. The text says, ‘And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him’ (Genesis 5:24). It is just not totally clear what this implies, but some people interpret it to mean that Enoch had an ascension into heaven. A clearer story is told of Elijah. The text reads ‘behold, there appeared a chariot of fireplace, and horses of fireplace, and parted them each asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven’ (2 Kings 2:11).
There is a practice that Moses wrote the primary five books of the Bible referred to as the Torah or Pentateuch. He can have written a few of them, but he couldn’t have written all of it because his death and burial is detailed at the tip of the Torah (Deuteronomy 34:5-6), which is nice evidence if any that he didn’t write at the very least this bit. Despite recording his death and burial, there nevertheless arose the thought, that he had some form of ascension into heaven. St Jude tells the story of Michael the Archangel contending about his body (Jude verse 9).
Indeed the concept Moses and Elijah ascended into heaven allows for them to re-appear on the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-8; Mark 9:2-8; Luke 9:28-36 and a pair of Peter 1:16-18).
The Ascension of Jesus within the Gospels
After the resurrection, Jesus spent forty days with the disciples (Acts 1:3). The scene of the Ascension is the Mount of Olives near Bethany near Jerusalem. The Gospel accounts by Matthew and John don’t record the ascension, but it surely is recorded by Mark and Luke. Mark mentions it at the tip of his Gospel where it reads: ‘So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the suitable hand of God’ (Mark 16:19).
Luke very briefly mentions it in the previous couple of verses of his Gospel account which reads: ‘And he led them out so far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And it got here to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven’ (Luke 24:50-51). After that ‘they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy: And were continually within the temple, praising and blessing God’ (Luke 24:52-53).
In John’s Gospel, the Ascension is just not described but it surely is referenced. John records Jesus saying ‘No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man’ (John 3:13) after which he says to the disciples ‘What in case you were to see the Son of Man ascending where he was before?’ (John 6:62), and after the resurrection, he says to Mary Magdalene, ‘Do not hold me, for I actually have not yet ascended to my Father … ‘ (John 20:17).
The Ascension in Acts
Luke then fleshes out his account in the primary chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. They were on the Mount of Olives (Acts 1:20) and Jesus spoke with them in regards to the coming of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4-8) after which ‘he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight’ (Acts 1:9). As they looked up and saw him go, two angels appeared (Acts 1:10) and said that he would someday return in the way he left (Acts 1:11). They then returned to the Upper Room in Jerusalem because the prelude to Pentecost.
The Ascension within the Epistles
The Ascension was not in dispute within the Early Church and it’s alluded to again and again within the Epistles. St Peter wrote about Jesus ‘who’s gone up into heaven, and is on the suitable hand of God’ (1 Peter 3:22). St Paul mentions the ascension in his letter to the church at Ephesus when he wrote: ‘When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men’ (Ephesians 4:8-10). In Philippians 2:9 Jesus is described as having been exalted. In Romans 8:34, Ephesians 1:20, Colossians 3:1 St Paul describes Jesus as being ‘at the suitable hand of God’. He also wrote to Timothy that Jesus was ‘received up into glory’ (1 Timothy 3:16).
Traditional Site
The traditional site of the Ascension is on the Mount of Olives, on which the village of Bethany sits. A church constructing was erected at the tip of the fourth century, which was destroyed and rebuilt plenty of times. Today there may be an octagonal chapel, called the Chapel of the Ascension. It houses a slab of stone which reputedly comprises the suitable footprint of Jesus where he stood before he ascended. The belief within the Ascension of Jesus is one among those beliefs which can be held by Muslims, so the location is used and venerated by each Muslims and Christians.
The Problem of the Ascension
The Ascension is a difficult story for a lot of. Most people today don’t hold to what appeared to be the traditional three-tiered cosmology of hell below us, earth in the center, and heaven above us. Many believers prefer to consider heaven as a spiritual realm, and the concept Jesus ascended into it bodily is a bit puzzling and even awkward, even to those evangelicals who imagine it. As a result the Ascension tends not be addressed by apologetics, and there are only a few books on it.
Some people prefer to consider the Ascension as symbolic, or they imagine a spiritual ascension, or as Jesus having a recent immortal spiritual body. The problem with that is that the New Testament narrative goes out of its approach to describe the resurrection as physical and bodily. The tomb is empty, Thomas puts his fingers in the injuries which his body still has (John 20:24-29), Jesus eats grilled fish with the apostles after the resurrection (Luke 24:41-43), and Jesus himself explains that he is just not a ghost nor a spirit (Luke 24:36-39). The implication is that if the resurrection and the Ascension weren’t bodily, then the tomb wouldn’t have needed to be empty.
The Ascension in Church History
The Ascension is one among the beliefs articulated within the Nicene Creed adopted in AD 325 with the words ‘ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father‘. It can be outlined in chapter 8 of the Westminster Confession of Faith. It has sometimes been linked theologically as a fulfilment of the Day of Atonement. The theologian William Barclay also identified that the Ascension enables the Second Coming. The Ascension has been a subject for paintings and icons and music throughout the centuries.
Ascension Day
Ascension Day within the Church calendar recalls the day of the Ascension of Jesus. Ascension Day is the fortieth day of the Easter season, held 39 days after Easter Sunday, which effectively means it all the time falls on a Thursday. In 2024, meaning it’s Thursday 9 May within the western tradition, but Thursday 13 June within the eastern tradition. Generally speaking, the western calendar is utilized by Catholic and Protestant Christians and the eastern calendar by Orthodox Christians. Ascension Day marks the tip of the Easter season, and occurs 10 days before Pentecost.
Ascension Day is marked by Christians internationally in lots of Christian traditions. For Catholics it’s a Holy Day of Obligation, for Orthodox it’s one among the twelve Great Feasts of the liturgical yr, and for Anglicans it’s Principal Feast and there could also be special services in churches. The Anglican Book of Common Prayer also calls the day Holy Thursday. One symbolic custom in liturgical churches is to extinguish the Paschal candle, which was first lit at Easter, as an emblem of Christ leaving the earth.
Ascension Day is a public holiday in lots of Catholic and Lutheran countries in Europe equivalent to Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, some cantons of Switzerland; but not within the UK, Australia nor the USA. In French is it called l’Ascension, and in German it’s splendidly called the Christi Himmelfahrt.
For Christians from evangelical non-conformist churches, not used to mid-week services, Ascension Day often passes by unnoticed, although in lots of churches it could be recalled on the next Sunday.
The lectionary readings for Ascension Day are Luke 24.44-53 or Acts 1.1-11, Daniel 7.9-14, Psalm 47 or Psalm 93 and Ephesians 1.15-23.
