THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST
Ephesians 1:15-23; Luke 23:44-53
Ascension Sunday, May 21, 2023
Pastor Ritva H Williams
This morning we enter once again into Luke’s story of the first Easter Sunday. The disciples are gathered in the upper room of a house in Jerusalem. Cleopas and his companion have just rushed in and shared their encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus. The Risen Christ appears in their midst. The disciples are overjoyed, disbelieving and wondering. Christ opens their minds to understand what was written about him in the Hebrew scriptures, and instructs them to stay in the city until they are clothed with power from on high. Then Christ walks with them as far as Bethany where he blesses them. Right before their eyes Christ is carried up into heaven. This event is called the Ascension (the going up).
One possible interpretation of the Ascension is that Jesus is not on earth anymore but is up in heaven, from where he occasionally answers prayer and intervenes in our lives through the Holy Spirit. At the end of time, Jesus will come down from heaven to establish God’s kingdom here on earth. Alternatively, at the end of time, Jesus will come back to gather up believers and whisk them away to a new heaven and a new earth.
Another interpretation of the Ascension is presented in our reading from Ephesians:
God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 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 the age to come. And he has put all things under this feet and has made him the head over all things for the church which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all (Ephesians 1:20-23)
Again in Ephesians 4:10, we hear “He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.” Filling all things with what, we wonder?
The writer of Ephesians provides the answer in 3:18-19, “I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fulness of God.”
Here the ascension of Christ is not about moving out of one geographical place into another, or from one spatial realm to another, or even from one dimension of time to another. The Ascension is for the specific purpose of filling all things with the knowledge and love of Christ and God. This is the interpretation that our Lutheran tradition follows, stating that Christ "ascended far above all the heavens, truly fills all things, and now rules everywhere, from one sea to the other, and to the end of the world, not only as God but as a human being.” In this scenario, Jesus is not out there somewhere watching and waiting to come and back and save us. But rather is embedded in the very fabric of the universe, working in, with, under, through and alongside everything to transform and renew all of creation.
The painting you see on the monitors is titled “The Ascension of Christ.” It was painted by Salvador Dali in 1958, and inspired by a "cosmic dream' that he had eight years earlier. In the dream, he saw a vividly colored the nucleus of an atom. With time and reflection, Dali came to understands it as represent the unifying spirit of Christ.
The first thing we see in the painting is Jesus’ soiled feet, drawing our eye inwards along his body to the center of the atom behind him. The atom has the same interior structure as the head of a sunflower. Jesus’ face is not visible. At the top of the painting is the divine mother, her eyes wet with tears. Just below her chin is a dove representing the Holy Spirit from whom emanates a circle of white light that intersects the inner and outer circles of the atom/sunflower. All of this against a background of dark seas, stormy grey clouds, and fire.
But instead of moving upward, Jesus seems to be moving inward. He is passing into center of the atom/sunflower which intersects with the circle of the Holy Spirit. Curiously, Jesus is depicted wearing only a loincloth, his feet are aligned together as they are on the cross, and his hands are flexed in agony and struggle. As one commentator puts it, “This feels more like an Ascension painting made mid-crucifixion.”
As such it makes a profound spiritual statement. Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension are not separate, disconnected events but aspects of a single unified whole. Death is part of the very fabric of the universe. Resurrection into new life is not cheap or easy but is born out of struggle and pain. Ascension is a movement up, in and through the center of the atom — which was believed to be the elemental building block of everything until scientists discovered protons and neutrons, bosons and strange things called quarks.
The Ascension is deep theology, hard to express in words, challenging to express even in pictures. But here’s what it means for us today. As we sing in our prayer response: “heaven and earth have been gathered.” God and human, heaven and earth are inextricably embedded within each other. They cannot be separated. Christ’s love fills and embraces each one of us and all of us together now just as we are in order to nurture, nourish and grow us up into the image and likeness of the Christ we are meant to be. Christ loves not just our souls, but every atom and cell of our persons, of our minds, and of our bodies. This is good news for all who are oppressed, vulnerable, and suffering in body, mind or spirit, for all who are in pain due to indifference and contempt, the pride and prejudice of others.
The crucifixion, resurrection and ascension which unite heaven and earth forever is also good news for all who grieve the death of loved ones. Here is an Ascension informed excerpt from John O’Donahue’s blessing “on the death of the beloved”
We look toward each other no longer
from the old distance of our names;
now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath,
as close to us as we are to ourselves.
Though we cannot see you with outward eyes,
we know our soul’s gaze is upon your face,
smiling back at us from within everything …
beside us when beauty brightens,
when kindness glows
and music echoes eternal tones.
And an Ascension informed word of of comfort from Jan Richardson’s “in the leaving.”
In the leaving, in the letting go,
let there be this to hold onto at the last:
the enduring of love,
the persisting of hope,
the remembering of joy,
the offering of gratitude,
the receiving of grace,
the blessing of peace.
Amen.
