Thoughts on Ascension Day

Part of the stained glass window in King’s College. Cambridge

I find it difficult to understand why, here in France, Ascension Day is a public holiday but Good Friday isn’t. For many of us, although it is mentioned in the creed, Ascension Day doesn’t seem to compare with Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. 

Perhaps it was easier to understand long ago, when people believed the earth was flat, Heaven was somewhere up above in the sky and Hell was distinctly down below. I have been reminded of the stained glass window in King’s College, Cambridge which shows Jesus’ feet disappearing up into a cloud, in a sort of celestial elevator, taking him up high to be with the Father.

Why then should we celebrate? Jesus is gone. Yet again! When a loved one dies we are devastated at the separation. We feel we can no longer engage with them. As Christians we believe that the dead rest with God and are enfolded in God’s love. But this comfort only goes so far …. After all Jesus wept for his friend Lazarus, even though he knew that Lazarus was not lost for ever.

On Ascension Day, the friends and disciples and family members of Jesus had to go through this separation a second time! First there was that gruesome, horrific death on a dark, grief stricken Friday and now, albeit it a much nicer way, Jesus is taken from them again. Surely this is too cruel! So, why were the disciples so full of joy when Jesus left them this second time? Was it what the angels said? What on earth made the disciples so happy!

That is the point though, isn’t it? Jesus did not leave the disciples but stayed with them, in the love they had for each other. It wasn’t goodbye, but a revelation of God’s presence here on earth. The Risen Christ is not limited to one particular place, to Bethany (Luke 21, v24) but is here around us all, every day,everywhere on our journey. 

So Ascension Day is not just about celebrating the Heaven that awaits us but the heaven that already lives in every human being, even the ones we struggle with, to see the real presence of the Risen Christ in our lives.

Julie