Jesus said to the disciples,

“These are my words that I spoke to you 

while I was still with you—

that everything written about me in the law of Moses, 

the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” 

Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 

and he said to them,

“Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer 

and to rise from the dead on the third day, 

and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed 

in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 

You are witnesses of these things. 

And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; 

so stay here in the city 

until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

Then he led them out as far as Bethany, 

and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. 

While he was blessing them, 

he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven.

And they worshiped him, 

and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; 

and they were continually in the temple blessing God.

At Christmas, baby Jesus was first seen in the world. Thirty something years later, at Ascension, he goes from sight. It is a momentous occasion: today a major Holy Day. Above all, a happy occasion. We celebrate all that God has done in Christ. We celebrate that Jesus has completed his very demanding vocation among us, his suffering now past, and that he takes our humanity, which he first embraced at Christmas, forward to a new stage of life. It has seemed to some that in England, nature usually celebrates Ascension-tide with the attractive flowers of cow parsley!

Jesus’ Ascension was a turning point for the early Church and soon it would be Pentecost. The Church will then be on a path of inspired expansion, reaching down to our own day. Without it we wouldn’t be here, and nor would this building.

Jesus went from sight. The cloud receiving him - a symbol of God’s presence. Heaven not being straight upwards, needing a space rocket! Ascension is essentially about Jesus’ status. A headteacher is ‘over’ a school. That’s about status and importance, not about being airborne. Jesus has gone up - in people’s estimation – gone up, in fact, to the maximum – now he is to be worshiped as at one with God himself. 

Notice, that it is at the very time when people are confident in worshipping Jesus as God, that he goes from sight. That seems very appropriate – you can hardly worship as God someone sitting alongside you. Jesus, similarly, disappears from sight when the disciples recognise him as the risen Lord, at the meal when they’ve walked with him to Emmaus.

Jesus, first seen as God’s incarnate Son at Christmas and last seen at Ascension when his friends finally worship him as God incarnate, and Risen. These are exactly the ideas which separate us from the Jews and Muslims. For them, ‘God incarnate’ is a deeply offensive idea, and worshipping Jesus as God is quite shocking and inappropriate.

We might think today, also, of the whole business of having a God. Who, or what, we worship is perhaps best seen in what we do, and are seen to value, rather than what we say. People might well be attracted to Church life because of friendship, social events, music or whatever. And those things are good, and the Church must be welcoming to all. But at the heart of things must be the love of God and the worship of God, and the humility and sacrifice that goes with that. Parishes, especially when they are struggling, as some are, tend to welcome any leaders who have energy, willingness, money, and ability. All good, but there must also be significant Godliness, or else the energy keeps others from contributing, the less willing are not encouraged to play the part which God wills for them, spending money gets wrongly prioritised, the piper calling the tune, the ability is turned to personal power, which might be very well-meaning or become self-aggrandisement. In the end, the household of God is not a true household, nor a fitting household of God. 

We bear witness to Christ’s Resurrection and his status, and membership of his household, and rejoice in those things, not just on this special day, but constantly. 

Fr Roger