![]() ![]() If we get a little deeper into the historical context as well we see this even more clearly. To say that Jesus “ascended” is a way of saying that Jesus has gone into God’s presence in the body until the day when all of us will be resurrected and live in the fully revealed presence of God. The “cloud” is an important clue here–for in the Scriptures the appearance of a cloud is most often equated with the presence of God (Moses and the Israelites followed a pillar cloud by day, Isaiah saw God within the “smoke” and cloud of the Temple). To say, then, that Jesus was “lifted up” does not mean that he went somewhere out beyond Mars, but that he was being exalted and was going into God’s space, God’s dimension. The resurrected body of Jesus, according to Luke and the other Gospel writers, was the first (and so far only) object which is at home in both spheres, looking forward to the day when everything will be renewed and joined together. The ultimate goal, according to the preaching of Jesus, was that these two interlocking dimensions, close to each other but veiled, would become one which is what we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer. Biblically speaking, heaven and earth are the two halves of God’s created world, two interlocking dimensions. Throughout the Bible, the distance between heaven and earth is not about up or down or how far away. It’s here, however, that we have to read the context to understand what the ascension means. Most people reading this passage have concluded that Jesus went up in some kind of heavenly elevator and would return again one day to take the rest of us up in the clouds in the same way. In reality, Luke’s vision of the ascension of Jesus isn’t so much about Jesus disappearing into the heavens as much as it is about ordering a new reality for the disciples. Inside the stone dome there is a rock which is supposed to be “the” rock that Jesus stood on when he floated up to heaven in the clouds…or at least that’s how the story goes. When I was in Jerusalem last January we went to the Church of the Ascension on the top of the Mount of Olives (which is now a Muslim site). This Sunday is “Ascension Sunday” on the church calendar, the Sunday before Pentecost that commemorates Jesus’ “ascension” into heaven. ![]()
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