Today is the 40th day in the season of Easter on the church’s calendar. It’s the day we remember the Ascension when Jesus was “lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight.” (Acts 1:1-11)  

It’s easy to miss! It always falls on Thursday,  It’s not a holiday except in some parts of Europe and Africa.  Hallmark hasn’t created a greeting card for it.  And the story is downright bizarre!

And yet… it’s still in the Bible. We affirm it in the historic creeds. It has inspired artists, musicians and poets in every generation. In Salvador Dali’s imagination, we see the soles of Jesus’ feet as he is effortlessly lifted into the light, leaving us in flat-footed wonder.

What will we do with a story like this? What real difference does it make in our lives? Who really needs the Ascension, anyway?

Historian, theologian and friend, Diana Butler Bass, recently shared her story of the day her friends convinced her to ride the Capital Wheel at the National Harbor just outside Washington, D.C.

She’s lived in the area for years but successfully avoided the Wheel because she is not a fan of heights. But after her friends convinced her to go, she wrote: “It wasn’t that scary. It was nice, looking out over the Potomac River, seeing the far skyline of the city. I appreciated getting a different view of the place where I live — and where so many unpleasant and alarming things are happening right now.” 

Looking back, she said her friends “made me want to be brave.” It led her to ask, “Isn’t that what friends are for? To help us be brave when we can’t be on our own? And enable us to see further than we normally would? Riding the Ferris wheel deepened my sense of gratitude for their companionship in this tough time.“

Her story left me thinking, maybe that’s what the Ascension is for!

Diana’s ride on the Capitol Wheel gave her a “different view of the place where I live.” If you’re like me, you could use something to lift our vision above the flattened, politically-manipulated, conflict-torn world in which we are living right now. I need the reminder of a higher reality beyond the daily headlines’ relentless onslaught against the values in which I’ve believed and the visions for which I’ve labored.

Maybe that’s what the Ascension is for! Here’s what I wrote about in Surprised by Mary.

Don’t ask me to explain the astrophysics of the Ascension! … I learned the truth of the Ascension as a teenager growing up in the Methodist Youth Fellowship when its motto was “Christ Above All.” The Ascension declares Christ is above every boundary of nation, race, class, and culture. He takes priority over all our human commitments, relationships, or institutions. He is “far above every ruler and authority and power that might be named not only now but in the future.” (Ephesians 1:2) The Ascension confirms the way revealed in Jesus to be the way the Almighty God is at work to redeem, reign and rule the whole of creation. 

Like those flat-footed disciples, I need to lift my eyes toward heaven to find the strength to go on.

Clyde Butcher has spent his career tromping through the Everglades or waiting on the beach for the right moment to capture the glory of creation in black and white photography. Here’s what he shared as he looked back on what could have been a debilitating stroke.

After my stroke in 2017, I refused to let this setback define me. Determined to reclaim my joy for nature photography, I made the decision to adapt. With the support of my loved ones, I acquired a walker and a digital camera.

Although I could no longer wade through deep waters or navigate rugged terrain, I found peace in the beauty of boardwalks and accessible paths. Over time, I slowly ventured a little off the beaten path. 

My wife, Niki, has humorously remarked, “He takes his walker where no man has taken a walker before!” Nature has been transformative in my recovery.

Like Butcher, I’ve been finding healing strength by watching the sun sending its refreshing light through the trees around our home, or waiting for the next thunderstorm to pour down rain upon us. I’ve remembered the words of poet.

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough! 
Thy winds, thy wide grey skies! 
Thy mists, that roll and rise! …
Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year. (“God’s World,” Edna St. Vincent Millay)

Maybe that’s what the Ascension is for.

It’s no small thing that disciples experienced the Ascension together. Jesus had told them, “I no longer call you servants. I call you friends.” (John 15:15) They found strength to face what they had experienced in the past and all they would face in the future in their friendship.

Diana said her friends “enabled her to see further than [she] normally would.” Friends “help us be brave when we can’t be on our own.” She concluded, “Riding the Ferris wheel deepened my sense of gratitude for their companionship in this tough time.”

With all of our human limitations, the Ascension prepares us to receive Jesus’ promise, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses.” (Acts 1:8)  Through our friendships we are empowered to be the agents on earth of the one who rules over all in Heaven; to be brave when we can’t be on our own.

Karl Barth (1886-1968) was the most influential Christian theologian of the 20th Century.  On the Ascension he wrote:

The conclusion of Christ’s work is therefore not an opportunity given to the Apostles for idleness, but it is their being sent out into the world.  Here there is no rest possible; here there is rather a running and racing; here is the start of the mission, the sending of the Church into the world and for the world. (Dogmatics in Outline. New York: Harper and Row, 1959, p. 127)

For Barth, believing that Christ is above all meant standing in bold opposition to Hitler’s seizure of power in 1933. He led the Confessing Church in speaking out against the way the German Church had become complicit in the Nazi ideology of Arian supremacy and he called for faithful resistance to the ultimate power of the “Führer.”

If that sounds like arcane theology or ancient history, take a look at the images of “white supremacist” groups brandishing their assault weapons, waving Nazi and Confederate flags and wearing MAGA caps. Look at the way the President ignores or undermines every form of accountability. And look at the way some parts of the Christian community have traded the Sermon on the Mount for access to political power.

None of us are able to be Christ’s agents in this world on our own. We are strengthened, encouraged, corrected, and made brave through our friendships.

And maybe that’s the we need the Ascension!

Grace and peace,

Jim