I won’t ask for a show of hands, but I wonder how many of you really believe that Jesus took off like a harrier jump jet and disappeared off into the sky as described in the gospel reading this evening (Luke 24:44-53)? And if he did, where did he go? Did he turn left just after Jupiter or carry on and turn right at Pluto? Did he pass beyond our galaxy and all the others so far discovered and those yet to be discovered? And then what? Is there a trap door somewhere beyond the stars that leads to heaven?

I can remember a dream, or it may have been a thought of my imaginings, from when I was very young. In it I discovered a trap door somewhere in the universe. This door took me into a totally white room. There was nothing in the room; it was almost a chill out place, completely blank to absorb so much of the busyness and pent up, well everything. As I got used to these surroundings I became aware of a door opening in the wall across the other side of the room. I don’t think I discovered what was beyond it, just a sense that beyond it lay the answer to everything.

This was just a dream; a young brain trying to come to terms with life, the universe and everything. It is the product of growing up at the same time as the Apollo space missions and with the Star Trek crew on telly. The aeronautics of the ascension now sounds very suspect, to say the least, to the way we view the world, but it too is a symbolic story based on 1st century thought forms about the world, the universe and everything. We no longer believe in the world being covered by a giant dome with heaven above. Chances are, after the Millennium, we don’t believe in domes - full stop! We don’t believe that if we drill down far enough we will reach hell. The mechanics of the ascension belong to a bygone age and seem a pointless exercise to our world of quantum physics and scientific discoveries.

We need to recognise that this celebration is so deeply packaged in picture language, and ancient picture language at that. Like my childhood dream, the ascension speaks of a profound faith in God’s ultimate control. It proclaims God to be the source and goal of everything. Ultimately God is our hope and our trust. As we see God in and through Jesus, so the picture language of his ascension says that God ultimately has the victory and therefore this life has purpose and a point. The ascension is part of the resurrection and its place in the gospels is to draw a neat line under the post resurrection experiences, so that the story, the accounts can move on. What if anything really happened is now well and truly beyond our grasp. Chances are nothing happened, this is just an ancient way of writing about things.

Does Jesus really sit at God’s right hand? That again is picture language taken from the royal court. It is the place of honour and shows his status and place in things. But anything we say about Jesus, we say about God, because his function is to reveal God, and so to proclaim the Lord enthroned, is to proclaim that God is the ultimate authority. Our life then only finds meaning in and through giving him the honour due.

‘He ascended into heaven’ means God is king and the point of everything. Our life is touched by this and we have a profound hope. We continue to sing Alleluias and indeed there is no greater response that we can give.

© Ian Black 2002

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