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the Ascension of the Lord
I would submit is a difficult feast and
idea for people today to understand that
Jesus went up bodily into heaven seems
to a lot of people today as a pre
scientific mythological idea I mean
wouldn't he still be somewhere up in the
galaxy and then even if you come to
understand this feasts in some way you
might say what was that to do with me
this strange thing happened to Jesus
long ago but how would this feast or
this doctrine affect me well I think the
key to understanding this is to recover
a Jewish sense of heaven and earth most
of us are willy-nilly Greek in our
understanding of heaven and earth what I
mean is we tend to dichotomize the
earthly and the heavenly this world and
the higher world in the manner of Plato
go back to when you were a freshman in
college and you read the Republic of
Plato for the first time and the famous
parable of a cave remember there are
people chained to a cave and all they
can see are flickering images on the
wall but one person manages to escape
from the cave to go up out into the
light and see reality that's a metaphor
for Plato of the escape from this even
essent ephemeral world that we live in
to go up to the realm of the forms as
the image of the cave suggests this
world is a kind of prison in fact
another dialogue he refers to the body
as a kind of prison and the soul longs
to escape it longs for a prison break
philosophy gives you some taste of that
but then finally death is the wonderful
moment of a prison break of escape so on
that Greek reading salvation is a sort
of getting up out of this world into a
higher world now I think that Greek idea
again you know whether we know it or not
has invaded much of our thinking problem
is that
Jews don't think that way that's not a
Jewish way of thinking about heaven and
earth biblical people indeed talked
about heaven and earth but they didn't
think about it in that platonic manner
for ancient Israel heaven is the realm
of God and the angels earth is the realm
of human beings and animals and plants
and planets and so on but but they're
not in radically separate metaphysical
spaces rather heaven and earth impinge
upon each other they interlace they
inter relate they touch upon each other
in all sorts of ways and the purpose of
salvation is not so much escape from the
wicked world as veil of Tears but rather
it's the Transfiguration of earth by
heaven here's a clue a very Jewish
prayer was uttered by our Lord when he
said thy kingdom come Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven and we pray
it all the time we probably don't avert
of the fact that it comes out of his
deeply Jewish Sensibility what he prays
for is not an escape from the earth what
he prays for is the coming together of
heaven and earth Lord may you reign here
as thoroughly as you reign in heaven it
also just reiterates what the prophet
Isaiah said namely Lord may your glory
cover the earth as the water covers the
sea you know that's the Jewish hope the
Jewish expectation think now in terms of
Jesus resurrection makes perfect sense
in this more biblical context what is
the resurrection not it is not the
escape of Jesus soul from his body
people in the first century knew that
sort of Hellenistic Greek idea the whole
point was to get out of the body and
your soul goes up to a heavenly realm
that's not what they said at all rather
all the accounts the resurrection
emphasize how embodied the Risen Jesus
is you know touch me look at these
wounds
in Luke's Gospel he eats and drinks with
them after he rises from the dead I'm
not a ghost he says to them there's a
ghost have flesh and bones as I do see
that's a Jewish sensibility not a soul
that's now in some disembodied State but
it's a earth transfigured by heaven if
you want think of this - Jesus ascension
now in his body ascending to heaven it
doesn't mean a space trip like up into
the sky what it means is the translation
of this earthly reality into the
heavenly dimension and notice how the
Ascension of Jesus is correlated to
Pentecost the descent of the Holy Spirit
as something of Earth goes up into the
heavenly realm something of heaven comes
down to the earthly realm it's the
meeting of heaven and earth the
Transfiguration of Earth by heaven
that's what's at stake in both the
Ascension and in Pentecost now the
church is the mystical body of Jesus the
church is that community of people who
have been transfigured by Christ and by
his heavenly power and our job is to
continue his work of bringing earth and
heaven together think of good preaching
what does good preaching do it unites
heaven and earth think of great
Christian art whether it's the Sistine
Chapel ceiling or Dante's Divine Comedy
they linked heaven and earth great
Christian architecture go into the
Gothic churches what are you seeing
about this great space it opens up to
heaven but it doesn't take you out of
the world so much think of it as
enveloping the earth you go up to heaven
then heaven comes down to earth think of
great singing at the liturgy our song
goes up but then we say may our voices
be one with theirs the ver is in
question with the voice of the angels
may our voices harmonize with the
angelic voices and all of it now
being heard on earth as in heaven that's
the task of the church that's why it's
so powerful to me at the end of the
account of the Ascension in Luke's Acts
of the Apostles Jesus ascends to this
higher dimension but then two angels
appear two men in white two denizens of
heaven if you want have come to earth
what do they say men of Galilee don't
stand there looking up into heaven he
will come back the same way he came you
see how Jewish that is if he's Plato
that's what you do you stand looking up
into heaven longing for the great day
when you will get out of the earth but
that isn't the Christian idea men of
Galilee why do you stand there looking
up to heaven he will come back the same
way he came now you go and do what he
did you go and do all you can to bring
heaven and earth together
see and that's why the Ascension of the
Lord is so important for the church it
is the commissioning of a church to do
its great work
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