thoughts on the ascended Christ

God ascends to shouts of joy, alleluia, alleluia.
The Lord to the blast of trumpets, alleluia, alleluia.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,
God ascends to shouts of joy, alleluia, alleluia.

A while back I bought a prayer book which, among other things, notes the days of the Liturgical Year. Though it has not been part of my evangelical Protestant upbringing, to me there’s something really cool about noting all of the important days, not just the “big ones”–Easter Sunday and Christmas.

For example, like Advent and Lent, Easter is a whole season, not just a day: seven weeks that stretch from Easter Sunday until Pentecost. For all these seven weeks after the resurrection, Jesus was walking around on this earth, showing himself to people and spending time with his disciples. The resurrection was not just some flash in the pan, a remarkable event that happened and then was over just as fast. It was the beginning of forty days of relationship building here on earth, and then of relationship building that continued beyond the boundaries of time and space.

In fact, it still isn’t over. Today is Ascension, marking the day when Jesus ascended into heaven to sit down at the right hand of the Father. That is the present-day, astounding reality with which we live: not just that Jesus died, not just that he was resurrected, but that he lives, today, and he is sitting in the most powerful position in the universe, interceding for us.

Happy Ascension Day. May all our thoughts and actions today be influenced by the reality that Jesus is alive, on the throne, and interceding for us–today and every day of our lives. Our faith is so much more than a nod to something that happened, once, a long time. It’s an ongoing relationship, an ongoing walk of trust and love for the One who is ascended on high.


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4 responses to “thoughts on the ascended Christ”

  1. […] thoughts on the ascended Christ Our faith is so much more than a nod to something that happened, once, a long time. It’s an ongoing relationship, an ongoing walk of trust and love for the One who is ascended on high. […]

  2. Rachel Avatar
    Rachel

    Jonathan, thanks for extending my post so well in your comment. All five points are so right-on (and number five is particularly affecting me at the moment).

    My background is also Baptist, and yes, it’s more than just ignorance, it’s willful–I get some of the reasons for that, but still don’t like it. Sometimes I think it’s not tradition in itself we need to reject, just the emptiness in our practice. Replacing an empty tradition with nothing seems … counterproductive.

    Thanks, Elisabeth. Right now I’m enjoying the prayer focus on the Holy Spirit when we celebrate Pentecost on Sunday.

  3. Elisabeth Avatar

    This is beautiful. I really appreciated reading your perspective. I love that fact that “like Advent and Lent, Easter is a whole season, not just a day: seven weeks that stretch from Easter Sunday until Pentecost”!

    Happy Ascension Day!

  4. Jonathan Lovelace Avatar

    Amen!

    When I went off to college (Calvin College), I discovered the liturgical year and found myself at home. Now that I’ve moved back after finishing college, I find the deliberate ignorance of liturgy in my church here (an independent Baptist church) somewhat distressing.

    There are a few other important implications of the Ascension that come to my mind: First, if Christ had not ascended, the Spirit could not have descended. (But that’s a celebration that we delay another ten days.) Second, it shows that his sacrifice was indeed sufficient once and for all, but that his kingdom has not yet fully come (Cf. Hebrews 10:11-14). Third, it emphasizes the point that material things matter; he didn’t disintegrate or just vanish (as he could have done, we know from his appearances in locked rooms in previous weeks), but ascended _bodily_ into heaven. Fourth, he is treating us like trusted servants and friends, not children or slaves, who have to be closely supervised; he gave us our instructions and left us to carry out his work as he had carried out his Father’s work. And fifth, by his ascension Christ has in at least some sense taken us into the very presence of God.

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