Disciples, Apostles, and Saints!
I try to have a playful relationship with the feast of the Ascension, which is one of the principal feasts of the church. Not irreverent, exactly, but joyful and honest. Because, of all the doctrinally significant aspects of the Jesus Event, this one is the hardest to square with the post-Enlightenment world. Which is to say that it remains essential and yet we also can’t really comprehend it physically. As in how to make this happen with the laws of physics and our sense of the cosmos.
It persists then, feeling, at times, vestigial, like we know this thing was important to human development for centuries, but like, you can take it out of the body and not worry at all.
So why does it persist? And why is it included in the creeds and in every Eucharistic Prayer? Because it still has a purpose, even if we can’t wrap our hands around the physical matters of it.
We believe in a full, bodily resurrection of Jesus who also full-bodied shuffled off this mortal coil. Which makes the form of the departure the least significant part of the story. And, in the same breath, we might honor the figure of departure, the motion of ascent as not only in the same vein as Elijah’s departure, but of relation to a God whose presence “above” is just as emotionally important as it is symbolically so.
Perhaps then, we take Jesus’s words these last few weeks in the gospel to heart in preparing his followers, not just for his departure, but for his presence with God and God’s continued presence with them. “Above” and here.
With love,
Drew+
