I swear every year I’m going to do something, and every year Ascension Day sneaks up on me and zooms by. It was May 29th, last Thursday. I suppose I could always cheat and just make the nearest Sunday Ascension Day (Observed), but I always hate moving actual days like that. The Ascension is 40 days after easter. Pentecost is 50 days after. Compared to All Saints which is always November 1st, but there is nothing else that connects it to that date. So what I end up doing is reflecting it in the Hymns. The Ascension is Crowning Day – Crown Him with Many Crowns. It is the Day he was “seated at the right hand of the Father” so Christ the Eternal Lord.
A theologian I listen to made me think a little more this year about why I keep missing Ascension Day. Although I think her first take was a little off. There are three accounts of the Ascension in the Bible. The first two are both by Luke, one at the end of his gospel and the other at the start of Acts. If you think of Luke-Acts as volume 1 and volume 2 of a story, it makes sense to retell the ending. And in Luke’s telling Jesus just kinda drifts up. Hence you get icons and images of the ascension with nothing but Jesus’ feet showing. Which in this theologian’s telling is kinda silly. And I guess it is, but that type of thing has rarely bothered me. Superman Jesus is amusing, but really, how are you going to visually depict a spiritual event? As Ender knew, the enemy is always down, and heaven is always up. The third image of the Ascension is in the book of Revelation. It never calls it that, but I’m pretty sure that is what it is. All Heaven is in a sad state because nobody can ascend to the throne and read a scroll. But then the lamb, like one who was slain, appears and is seated and proceeds to open the scroll. (Revelation 5). Maybe a little like my theologian’s embarrassment at those feet, being a good American I don’t know what to do with an actual – as opposed to a metaphorical – enthronement. I’m fine with the imagery of crowns, but an actual crown? Americans of my generation can still sing along with Schoolhouse Rock “No More Kings”.
The second embarrassment of emphasizing “seated at the right hand of the Father” is that we think of Kings as having all authority. “Blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever” all of heaven sings. But what happens when the enthroned lamb starts opening the scroll? All hell breaks loose – 4 horsemen, and saints asking “how long?” and earthquakes and blood and people calling for mountains to fall on them. When God is on his throne, all is supposed to be well. But it is not.
But where do I get that “all is supposed to be well” from? Where does my image of a King with all authority meaning peace come from? It certainly isn’t from the experience of Kings in this world. Even the Sun King of France had his problems. And the biblical picture of the newly enthroned Son King is of the damage Satan thrown out of Heaven is wreaking upon the earth. “All will be well” is the promise at the end of the story. As my favorite Christmas hymn tells it, “All idols then shall perish and Satan’s lying cease, and Christ shall raise his scepter, decreeing endless peace.” But today? Today the din of battle, the next the victor’s song.
What Ascension means is at long last the return of the King. The correct person is upon the throne. We probably all have experienced following the wrong person. The despair that can overcome. The rats seeking to flee the ship. The second guessing. And because Christ has chosen to work in this world through the Spirit and through the church we might have plenty of second guessing. But maybe that is because we are called to faith. Not necessarily faith that all will be well here and now, or that all leadership even is good. But faith that God is working all things for the good of his people. Faith that because Christ is ascended, what we attempt will not be doomed. That nothing done for Christ is ever lost.
