![]() ![]() When we turn to God in times of distress or temptation we are not addressing a deity aloof and unfamiliar with our struggles. The ascended Jesus, who sits at God’s right hand, reveals a God who is vulnerable and even approachable. We can no longer define God in a way that leaves God completely detached from human experience. The ascension of Jesus into heaven alters our picture of God. The God now being worshiped by the disciples in our passage is also one who knows loneliness, betrayal, rejection, thirst, and even death. It is not that they are wrong but rather they are incomplete. Of course it is possible to find Biblical passages to support these claims about God. God is majestic and sovereign and eternal. That is, God is imagined to be perfect in the sense that God is beyond all limitations of time and space. Most people (Christians included) seem to naturally lapse into a view of God that makes “sense” from a reasonable point of view. Our lens for thinking about God must always include a crucified, risen, and living Christ. But for our purposes, it means it is no longer possible to talk about God without talking about Jesus. There is obviously a strong hint of the Trinity here. These followers of Christ, all pious Jews, know that God alone is to be worshiped. This is hinted at in Luke 24:52 where we read that the first act of the disciples was to worship Jesus after he was taken away to heaven. It can even be said that a new view of God is emerging in the biblical texts describing the Ascension. Just what are we saying when we affirm that Jesus is “sitting at the right hand of God” (Mark 16:19)? In other words, the meaning of the Ascension is wrapped up in the significance of Jesus now being with God. Heaven is not so much a “place” but rather the human expression for where God resides. This implies a new understanding of heaven. It seems this text will make sense only when we shift the focus from a Jesus floating away on the clouds to what these verses are now saying about the relationship between Jesus and God. If we insist on operating within this framework, then our preaching on the Ascension will limp along and have very little impact on our listeners. This reminds me of the Soviet-era cosmonaut who returned successfully from a mission in space and declared that he didn’t find God “up there” and thus all religion must be false. Many interpreters get stuck on Luke 24:51 where it says Jesus “withdrew from them (his disciples) and was carried up into heaven.” This seems to imply that in order for the Ascension to make sense we need to embrace the three-story universe of the Bible. Properly considered, the story of Christ’s ascension can lead to a powerful proclamation of the gospel. How could I help people relate to the story of Jesus being taken away from his disciples and being lifted up into heaven? Would it not be better to move quickly past the Ascension and on to Pentecost and the founding of the Christian church? But this might be a bit rash. The texts seem so fantastic and otherworldly. As a pastor I used to dread preaching assignments on Ascension Day. ![]()
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