Living the Ascension

Thursday of this week was Ascension Day, the day we mark the Ascension of the Risen Christ to the Godhead. This Sunday is known as the Sunday after Ascension. The churches celebration of the Ascension is based entirely on the Book of Acts. The gospels either don’t talk about it or have it on Easter Day. So, how does the Ascension change our present and shape how we live our lives?

As I have said before, the Gospels were written in many ways to teach that in Jesus we meet God. That means our understanding of the nature of God should be shaped by Jesus’ life, ministry and death. The resurrection acts as God’s big tick to all that Jesus’ life, ministry and death reveals about God, and that the world may know that every soul and all creation has come from and has a place in the creative love of God.  Resurrection affirms the crucifixion as the door into the heart of God,  and with the Ascension declares that the risen Christ is no longer confined to one place and one time, but is now present in all creation and all time. Because of the Ascension we are invited to look for signs of the risen Christ’s presence based on how Jesus the Christ presented in the gospels.

Ascension can also be seen as the other side of the Incarnation. In the Incarnation the divine mingles with the human and Jesus is understood as both fully human and fully divine. In the Ascension the resurrected Christ who is still both fully human and fully divine returns to the Godhead. Jesus’ humanity is not somehow left behind. Through the human risen and ascended Jesus we humans are folded into the divine.

As we finish this season of Easter and listen to Jesus praying for us, how does the resurrection and ascension change our present and shape how we live our lives? What has changed for us this Easter?