Ascension

Those of us who use the (Nicene) Creed in our worship will recognise the sequence,

“On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,and his kingdom will have no end.”

In the forty days after his resurrection, Jesus met his disciples in various settings. He encouraged them, and reminded them of his need to return to the Father, and the promise of the Holy Spirit coming to them. Thus they were transformed from the bewildered, frightened and grieving group of people that they were after Jesus’ death, to the confident early Christians that we see in the Acts of the Apostles.

Without the crucifixion and resurrection, there is no salvation, but it was after his ascension into heaven that the Church was born at Pentecost. So those two events are just as important to our Christian life as Easter.

At Christmas we talk about heaven and earth meeting. Ascension is also a meeting of earth and heaven: man going up to heaven, rather than God coming down to earth.

There seem to be three keythemes to Ascension: the firstis that it was Jesus, as he wason the earth, with his woundsfrom crucifixion still visible tohis disciples, who ascendedinto heaven; secondly, he isseated at ‘the right hand ofGod’ as King, whose Kingdomis everlasting; thirdly, althoughnow gone up to heaven, he will come again, to judge ‘the living and the dead’.

The first, that at the Ascension humanity was taken into the Godhead is a profound mystery. From the beginning of the Bible, we are told that God created man in his own image, and later in Proverbs that he ‘delighted’ in human beings, but here we have humanity being incorporated into God. Some theologians point out that the Ascension also emphasise that the ‘destiny of human beings’ is to become divine. Salvation is sometimes expressed thus: "God became man so that Man might become god."

The second theme is that Jesus is King, sitting by the Father. This is of course no new concept to us. Our scriptures, our liturgy, our prayers are all full of words relating to kings and kingdoms. The Lord’s prayer ends with the proclamation that to God belongs the kingdom. In modern times, when most countries do not have a king (or queen) and the aspiration generally is to become republics, we have to work hard to understand what this means. The first and best source as to what Kingdom of Heaven means, is Jesus himself. He taught through many parables and other sayings what the Kingdom of God is like. It would be wrong to assume that it is like the realm of the best King we know on earth.

The third aspect pertaining to Ascension is the predicted second coming of Jesus: He will come to judge the living and the dead. No one knows when; it will be like a thief coming to steal at night. However, Jesus does tell us how he will judge us. He will separate us like goats from sheep and invite the ‘sheep’ into heaven, while the ‘goats’ will be cast into hell. The criteria for the separation is important to note. The chosen ones are those who fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, clothed the naked, visited the sick and those in prison: Jesus counts what they did for ‘these least of his brethren’ as being done for him. And if they didn’t look after those in need, it was him that they were spurning.

In this parable from Matthew’s gospel, no mention about believing or religious observances, we note. It is all about loving your neighbour, no doubt inspired by the love for God.

One might wonder who can qualify to be among the sheep, as we all fall short of what is expected of us. All we can do is simply to trust that Jesus who died for our salvation will show compassion and forgiveness even at the last judgement.