Ascension-tide Practice

Ascension Day marks forty days since Easter in the church calendar, the reckoning of time in the wake of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

In a past parish where I served as a priest, I would celebrate a liturgy for Ascension day with a handful of the faithful in the choir loft of a little cedar and fir planked sanctuary. Above our heads we could look upon a stained glass window, depicting Jesus Christ within a mandorla figure.

Jesus Christ in glory, Jesus Christ ascended.

It was a focal point for many peoples eyes. That window and two others had been removed from a decommissioned episcopal sanctuary in the neighboring town, along with a couple of others, and installed here. Some of the glass in these windows had been collected by a man who would later be rector of the neighboring parish where the windows first were. He picked up the shards from the bombed Coventry cathedral while in Europe during the second world war. Those fragments and shards were re-composed into new windows, including images of wheat, grapes, fish and small cruciform mustard flowers and plants.

wish I had some better photographs of these

Lately I’ve been looking for ways to mark and celebrate the Ascension, alongside or beyond formal liturgical celebrations within the sanctuary. Not unlike in practicing sabbath, I (mostly)put down my usual work, in this case a wood project not quite complete on wednesday that I’ll pick back up friday.

Today I look at plants whose stems are pushing upward. I look at tree tops. Quite a few band-tailed pigeons have been flying by today, and four hawks were crying as they rose higher and higher aloft on thermals.

I wonder about other other ways you have received to celebrate and live from this deep and rich symbol and image of Christ, and the life you have hidden with him in God?

A social media post of the PA German Heritage Center at Kutztown University about Ascension, or “Himmelfahrt’ customs, offers some to consider. These include/d putting down work, going fishing (like the disciples, fishing for people, sent out as witnesses to the ends of the earth) and refraining from sewing and binding on Ascension day.

Perhaps the manual putting down of needle, thread, string, and other ligatures or means of binding was a symbolic reference to Christ’s words to Mary Magdalen at the tomb,

Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to my father. (John 20:17, NRSV)

A reading from the book of Acts gives an account of the event ‘the Ascension.’

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.  While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:6-11)

The writer conveys the experience of the apostles and early witnesses, and the message of the two figures robed in white. ‘Acts’ attests to the the importance of at least two things.

First, looking to Jesus Christ, ascended, seated, reigning in glory, from whom the church and its faithful ones expect the Holy Spirit and all good gifts. Second, looking here on earth for the ways that God is faithful to us, beyond the edge of our own vision and faithfulness.

I’ll come back to that, but consider a few more layers of testimony to the Ascension. A few hundred years later, the two summary statements of the christian faith known as the Apostles’ and Nicene creeds attest to the place of the Ascension in the message regarding Jesus Christ.

I beleeve in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, who was conceived by the holy Ghost, Borne of the virgin Mary. Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was crucified, dead and buried. He descended into Hell, The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of God the father Almighty. From thence he shall come to judge the quicke and the dead. …  (Text as found in The Book of Common Prayer, 1662)

And the ascension figured into the faith, thought and practice of the early church, before the four canonical gospel texts and ‘Acts of the Apostles’ were written. The New Testment letters describe the Ascension figuring into the experience and prayer of the faithful. Consider the Letter to the Colossians, where we read,

So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. (Colossians 3:1-4)

If we turn to the Hebrew scriptures, we encounter prophets who walked faithfully before God, and who were somehow taken, lifted up, in a manner like Jesus in the ascension. Moses. Enoch. Also Elijah. 2nd Kings, chapter 2, tells of the prophet Elijah walking down to the Jordan river alongside his protégé, the prophet Elisha. In the sight of Elisha’s eyes and heart, Elijah is taken up to heaven in the presence of fire and the chariots of God. Just before Elijah is taken from the presence of Elisha, he tells Elisha “Tell me what I may do for you, before I am taken from you.” Elijah asks Elisha to ask something of him. “Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit.”

And Jesus tells those who desire to follow him to ask. Like Elisha before Elijah, before the risen and ascended Christ, we too ask. We can ask to receive those good gifts that can guide, teach, heal and complete us in faith. I’m encouraged to read in so many ways in scripture that God wants to give these things to us.

Ascension presents us a day on which to practice a double movement in prayer and living. This practice is for us personally, and this practice is for churches, local congregations, the Body of Christ, to consider in the present moment of life, 2021.

To not hold on to things, and to take hold of what God is sending, as we witness the life we have hidden with God.

So, this Ascensiontide-

What are you newly aware of, rising in your heart?

What are you asking of God?

In what little ways can you see God’s faithful presence today?

What has been put into your hands, head and heart to help others also see?