Hope Archives ~ Jude Mills

UNFKD Episode 16 – THE ASCENSION

Posted on June 2, 2025July 7, 2025 by Jude Mills

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

I would like to invite you to do something point to heaven.Now, I bet that quite a few of you are pointing up the way.

Everyone knows that heaven is up there, right? Or is it?This is UNFKD, the bonus series of my podcast Fkd Up by Faith, where I talk about theology or theology related ideas which are harmful, misunderstood or just plain wrong.

And today we’re talking about the Ascension.In the episode that I did at Easter about the resurrection, I promised that I would do this episode on the Ascension.

Now the Feast of the Ascension actually occurs on the Thursday 40 days after Easter, which would make it last Thursday.But a lot of churches in the Catholic and Anglican traditions will celebrate Ascension on the following Sunday after Ascension Thursday.

And this often happens with some of the bigger feast days.I suppose it’s to allow more people to go to mass.So as this podcast goes out, Ascension Sunday was yesterday.

That was Sunday the 1st of June.Now, if you are unaware of the Ascension story, or even if you are here, it is as it’s described in the book of Acts.

ACTS 1: 1-11 (NRSV)

“In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when He was taken up to heaven.

After giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen after his suffering, He presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during 40 days and speaking about the Kingdom of God.

While staying with them, He ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father.This, he said, is what you have heard from me.For John baptised with water, but you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.

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.”

The Ascension, like most of the themes that I choose for this podcast, is very much misunderstood and has been the subject of much debate and controversy over the centuries. And nowadays, because it continues to be something which is difficult to get your head around, it’s kind of ignored, I would say. I personally love it.That’s partly because it’s one of the major feast days that I have been privileged to preach on in the church.I really enjoyed getting my theological teeth into particularly the mysticism inherent in the story.

And So what I’m going to share is one of those sermons, if you want to call it that, gently modified for this medium in which I explore what it means, certainly from my theological perspective, for Jesus to have ascended into heaven and kind of what that means for us. Now, as always, I’ll include in the show notes some pointers towards additional resources that you can look at if you want to know a little bit more.All right, let’s get into it.

If you Google or use another search engine, the Ascension, you will.If you look at the images, you’ll see many depictions painted throughout the centuries, and almost all of them show Jesus floating upwards or on or into a cloud. Sometimes he’s surrounded by angels, sometimes he is being pulled seemingly by the hand of God, and sometimes, rather amusingly, you will see just his feet disappearing into a cloud.

The astronomer Carl Sagan is reported at least to have said if Jesus were caught up at the speed of light, which is 186,000 miles per second, with what we know today about the vastness of our Galaxy, Jesus would still be travelling today just to reach the outer limits of the Milky Way.Furthermore, there are billions and billions of galaxies now.

As 21st century Christians, we know, most of us, that the Earth is a globe with an atmosphere with it’s own weather systems. We have the benefit of understanding that the Earth is part of a vast solar system, an even vaster Galaxy, and an unimaginably vast universe.We can be pretty certain from the evidence of science and from our own experience, most of us have been in an aeroplane, that heaven is not physically up there above the clouds.

So where is it? In truth, attempting to grapple with any literal interpretation of the Ascension story is, I think, missing the point.At the top of the episode I asked you to point to heaven. So if I were to ask you another question, which is where is God, you might answer something like, well, God is everywhere.Contrary to popular imagery, God is not a man in the sky.

God cannot be pinned down by geography, or by direction, or indeed any of the rules of the physical universe as we understand them.Any sense of God or heaven being up there is to restrict God to a view which is always mediated both by our human senses and our current understanding of the laws of the universe.

We are told in the ascension story that Jesus was taken out of sight in a cloud.Now clouds in biblical terms are often represent the presence of God.So Jesus in this sense may be seen to have been enveloped in the cloud of God. So taken back, absorbed back into God, He returned as he came to God’s everywhereness.This everywhereness of God is utterly beyond our imagining, because it isn’t everywhere in any physical, tangible, touchable, measurable way.

There’s a a book by an anonymous 14th century Mystic.It’s called The Cloud of Unknowing, and in this book the author describes this idea in a very beautiful way, as Mystics often do. So this is what they say.

“Since Christ ascended in physical form and then afterwards sent the Holy Spirit physically, it was more fitting that his journey to heaven was described as up rather than down, and that the Holy Spirit’s path to earth was described as from above rather than from below, from behind, in front of or on one side or another.I say that it was more fitting because it makes more sense to us, but in reality, the direction that he went up instead of down didn’t matter since it’s all the same distance.Spiritually speaking, heaven is as close down as up, as close behind as before, as quickly reached from one side as the other.“

One of the other readings assigned for Ascension is from Saint Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, and in it Paul asks us to be enlightened by the eyes of our hearts with this understanding, the everywhereness of Christ who is one with God.It’s not something we can see with our physical eyes, but it can certainly be felt, and we’re told in the ascension story how we access it. We access it through the presence of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is seen as the final redemptive gift of the whole Paschal mystery, the story of Easter. And that culminates in next Sunday celebration of Pentecost, the celebration of when the Holy Spirit descends on the disciples when they’re in Jerusalem.In this way we might imagine that heaven is not so much up as in Saint Augustine said.

“He is here with us by his divinity, his power, and his love.We cannot be in heaven as he is on earth by divinity, but in him we can be there by love.When the disciples witnessed Jesus final bodily departure from earth, they might have felt sad, but we are told that they returned to Jerusalem with joy.“

And so it’s with joy that we recognise that while Jesus is no longer visible with our physical eyes, Christ is always with us.

I’ll leave you with the words of the late Pope Francis. This from a homily that he gave for the Ascension.

“The Lord’s ascension into heaven, while inaugurating a new form of Jesus presence among us, calls us to keep eyes and hearts open to encounter Him, to serve him and bear witness to him to others.It is a matter of being people of the Ascension, that is, those who seek Christ along the paths of our time.On this journey we encounter Christ in our brothers and sisters.As at the beginning the risen Christ sent his apostles with the power of the Holy Spirit, so too does he send all of us today with the same power so as to establish concrete and visible signs of hope.”

14:54

You’ve been listening to Fkd Up by Faith UNFKD.I’m Jude Mills.You can listen to the podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.You can connect with the podcast on social media. I am on BlueSky as Jude Mills.The podcast Fkd Up by Faith is on Instagram or you can find out about the podcast on my website judemills.com.If you would like to be a guest on the Fkd Up by Faith podcast, I’d love to hear from you.

So do get in touch.Go well.

RESOURCES/LINKS

Reading from from the Acts of the Apostles 1: 11 (NRSV)

Text of “The Cloud of Unknowing https://sacred-texts.com/chr/cou/index.htm

Homily on the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord – from Pope Francis (2018) https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/angelus/2018/documents/papa-francesco_regina-coeli_20180513.html

Very comprehensive Wikipedia entry on the Ascension https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascension_of_Jesus

Ascension in the Vatican News https://www.vaticannews.va/en/liturgical-holidays/solemnity-of-the-ascension-of-the-lord.html

Ascension resources from Loyola Press https://www.loyolapress.com/catholic-resources/liturgical-year/sunday-connection/ascension-of-the-lord-cycle-c/

Music “Better Day” and “Nebula” by Penguin Music on Pixabay https://pixabay.com/users/penguinmusic-24940186/

“echoes-of-heaven-meditation-186652” by Natures Eye on Pixabay NaturesEye – Pixabay

Midwinter Stillness Workshop

Posted on December 8, 2023December 8, 2023 by Jude Mills

Join me on the eve of the Winter Solstice for an invitation to gentle solstice ritual, poetry, meditation and nourishing somatic enquiry to ease us into the season of deep rest.

Thursday 21st December 2023

6:30 – 8 pm GMT (check your local time here)

on Zoom – by donation

Now is the moment of magic,
when the whole, round earth turns again toward the sun…
Victoria Safford

The Winter Solstice is a time of special blessing. The invitation to stillness often gets forgotten amid the other great Winter celebrations. Here is your invitation – whatever your personal spiritual beliefs. This is a gentle participatory workshop with a quiet and personal solstice ritual, inspiring seasonal poetry, meditation, gentle somatic enquiry and – to round off the evening – a delicious singing bowl relaxation.

What you need to attend: – a comfortable, warm space, warm comfy clothes, a notebook and something to write with, and maybe a warm drink – and that’s it! You can be on the sofa, on the floor, in a chair, on the bed. Just be comfy.

I am an ordained interfaith minister and spiritual counsellor with many years’ of practice in leading and conducting ritual, as well as 20+ years teaching yoga and meditation.

…and here’s a blessing:
the days will be longer and brighter now,
even before the winter settles in to chill us
– Victoria Safford

Solstice thoughts (where everything is either horrendous or hilarious depending on your POV)

Posted on December 21, 2022December 21, 2022 by Jude Mills

Blimey. It’s been a while. To be fair, I have been writing a dissertation, doing an actual ‘proper’ job, and hosting a podcast. These all require a significant amount of neurodivergent/creative bandwith. All good, creative, purposeful things.

**photo taken while I was still feeling hopeful!**

Into the mix, however, is a broken collarbone which has YET TO BE FIXED because of two (two!!) cancelled surgeries. The first one was cancelled when I was in the hospital, already wearing the surgical gown and DVT socks, and with an arrow sharpied onto my left shoulder. This might have been hilarious if it wasn’t after six months of waiting. Then there was the 18 hours of fasting and working myself up into enough of a lather to actually be able to go to the hospital in the first place! What is everyday to the people who fix collarbones, is a really big deal to those of us who need them fixed. And some of us have brains that don’t do these sorts of things very easily.

The second cancellation – just this Monday past – rather tipped me over the edge. Today is Wednesday. I am still over the edge. And since I am already over the edge, why don’t we add having no running water into the joyful blend of Solstice cheer and Christmas preparations? Yes, why not?

Let them drink… sweet sherry and prosecco!

The thing is… these things are happening to me, and I could – quite legitimately – feel personally aggrieved. Which, I do. But I am utterly, seethingly livid about the bigger picture. Yes, it’s personal, but the personal – as my feminist forebears taught us – is political.

Friends, let me present to you: The English health service. And the English water network.

The NHS because of – God – where do we even start? Yes, I am anxious and stressed and still in pain because my operation got cancelled. But it got cancelled because staff called in sick. There is not even a nanometre of leeway in the NHS to accommodate that. Chronic staff shortages, underfunding, Brexit, and a (Not even very covert) push towards privatisation have all taken a massive toll. It is on its knees. And people wonder why nurses are striking?

**Not even the USA has private water, that’s how bad it is!**

And the water! My God the water. England and Wales have a privatised water supply and networks. This is monopolized (quite legally btw) by a few companies who fail to invest in infrastructure so that rainfall causes flooding, burst water mains cause havoc (and NO RUNNING WATER FOR CHRISTMAS) and raw sewage is constantly released into our rivers and seas!

If I am pissed off about my own personal circumstances, it pales in comparison to the level of seething rage I feel at the immoral erosion of these two fundamental basic human rights.

Things really are a bit crap. Let’s not pretend they’re not.

And tonight is the Solstice, and I came on here to write something spiritual and hopeful and, well here it is! We can laugh about that surely? There comes a point – when everything is just a bit shite – when all there is left to do is acknowledge it, maybe indulge in a bit of dark humour, and surrender all and any control we imagined we had. This does not mean giving up the fight, only that there are fighting days, and there are surrendering days. There are times for rolling up our sleeves and doing everything we can to make things better, and there are times for filling a hot water bottle (perhaps with boiled rainwater!) and hiding under a blanket.

So into this longest, darkest night of the year, I offer this meditation:

Everything is a little bit shite, and that’s OK. Joy and Peace and Love and Hope still exist.

And a Blessing:

May you feel the deep Peace of Winter’s stillness; the cocoon of Love that surrounds you in the darkness; the joy that bubbles up from the depths of your soul; and the Hope that lies in something bigger than all of this, and all of us.

Sending Love and Peace and Hope and Joy out into the ether for all of you who are tending anything painful this Solstice.

Jude xxx

Themes Biblical, Compassion and Zero Tolerance

Posted on January 13, 2021January 14, 2021 by Jude Mills

I am lying, awake, irritated by the sound of the neighbour’s central heating exhaust and worrisome thoughts about the ‘biosecurity’ of our ducks’ pen. (As if things weren’t bad enough, Avian Flu is on the march as well) I have been reading a book for my Theology course which tackles the morally ‘problematic’ texts of the Old Testament, the bits that seemingly advocate violence, rape, slavery, homophobia, genocide… One suggestion, and I suppose an accepted understanding, is that things are better than then. That we have somehow evolved to be more morally mature.

I am not so sure.

It’s not just central heating and ducks that are keeping me awake. The escalating rise of Covid infections; the health service (that I work for) on the brink of overwhelm; an attempted fascist coup in the United States; the many unfolding ramifications of the shit show that is Brexit, as well as all the other global atrocities, such as the ongoing crisis in Yemen. Plague, war, division, exile, genocide: these themes are – quite literally – Biblical. Not to mention misogyny, homophobia and racism, it’s all still there. Human beings have never really stopped inciting or exacerbating this crap.

Of course, it wasn’t God doing all those things in the Old Testament, it was human beings! God was the justification, or at least the way in which they made sense of it all. And it is human beings who continue to behave the most jaw-droppingly appalling ways. Sadly God is – for many of them – still the justification.

If God was the kind of God they seem to think God is (and I don’t believe in that God) I think God would be rather pissed off.

Violence done in the name of God is a common atheistic argument against religion. And I see the point. Except for all the ways in which religious people (many more than those who commit violence) promote peace, love and unity in the name or practice of their faith. Human beings also behave appallingly in the name of other things that are not religion. Violence is about people. As we are seeing in the USA at the moment, God has been invoked in ways that many people of faith find deeply disturbing and offensive. And it’s not OK.

I said today on a social media post that neutrality is no longer an option. I was talking about the unspoken but generally accepted rule that religious leaders should stay away from the subject of politics. Particularly those who preach. This is in the week following an insurrection in which people were visibly and prominently wearing and carrying emblems and insignia that glorify white supremacy, antisemitism and genocide. That isn’t politics, it’s immorality. And if there’s one thing that religious leaders are qualified to comment on, it’s morality. I have been heartened to see many taking a stand on this. Calling for more than unity, namely: action; accountability; and zero tolerance of the kind of bigotry and hatred that history has taught us does not end well for anyone.

In truth, the Bible has many more passages in its entirety that promote the themes of liberation and social justice, as well as love, hope, faith and unity, than the other more troublesome parts. Taken as a whole, it gives a lot of hope for humanity. Love and compassion are the overriding themes of most faiths, because, despite our worst behaviours, love and compassion are also the overriding instincts of human beings for one another. Hope is possible because we know this is what we are capable of, and what most of us actually want and value.

Love, Compassion, Unity, Hope. Yes, but does this mean tolerating fascists? Most definitely not.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jnr.

The Magi and the ‘bad’ year

Posted on January 3, 2021January 3, 2021 by Jude Mills

Today is Epiphany, The date when Christians in the Western Church celebrate the arrival of the Magi, and with them the manifestation and revelation of The Christ – the Light of the World – to the whole world. Who doesn’t know and love that story of ‘wise men’ and their gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh?

It is also a New Year, and a time for reflection. Although there are other transitional times throughout the year that lead us to reflect on what has happened, New Year feels, for reasons of new calendars and psychological blank slates, more significant. It is especially true this year, following the year that will forever (or for a long time at least) be synonymous with the lockdown. It was, in many minds, a ‘bad year.’

And yet, three days into 2021, not much has changed. In terms of the Covid situation, it is actually much worse. Does that mean 2021 is a ‘bad’ year too? When it’s only January 3rd? Or does more of it have to be bad? A relatively arbitrary historical imposition of a twelve-month pattern aligns with a strange notion that moving from one day to the next will somehow make things different, better. Why is a year deemed good or bad depending on specific events that have happened during the past twelve months?

Of course, this is mostly subjective. Individual experiences in any given year are all very different. There are other calendars – Chinese, Hebrew, Islamic, Ethiopian, Persian – which have different ‘New Years’. Not only that, ‘bad’ things happen to people all the time, all year round. All sorts of terrible individual, social and geographical traumas. There are people in war zones, in refugee camps, in situations of domestic violence. The difference I suppose, is that Covid is happening to all of us. And in the year where a bad thing happened to all of us, it is tempting to think that 2020 was the culprit. In reality, it was the Covid that was bad, not the year.

As a child, I remember adult family members toasting New Year with a unanimous agreement that the current year had been tragic/depressing/full of disaster/maligned with bad luck and that they hoped the coming year would be better than the last one. I found it strange and troubling, thinking of all the other – good or just neutral – things that had happened and wondering why it was the bad thing that had made the year what it was.

I have since discovered that this is what human beings do. We have the cerebral wiring that anchors negative events – an ancient survival mechanism. We are more likely to recall and focus on the bad stuff, therefore, and rather forget that there were also many moments of happiness. There are good evolutionary reasons for this, but whilst we have rather moved on from the need to avoid that place where the sabre-toothed cat ate our uncle, our brains still work that way. Our desire to make sense of this creates patterns, meanings, stories. ‘It has been a bad year’ and not, ‘some things happened and some other things happened, some were good, some were bad, some were neutral,’ creates a meaning-full narrative. If bad things are the things that defined the period, then a new period gives us hope that things will be better ‘this year’ or ‘next week’ or ‘tomorrow’.

Hope is a deeply human and necessary thing. In the darkness, we choose to see light. Indeed, it is in the darkness perhaps that the light is more visible. Hope is a particular feature of faith, but those without faith see it and desire it too. As a chaplain it is a question I ask often, and maybe moreso of people who don’t have any religious beliefs: What gives you hope? Maybe this is one reason the story of the Magi is so compelling, even for non-Christians. A bunch (maybe three, maybe many more) of astrologers, ‘foreigners’ from ‘The East’ choosing to follow a strange bright new star towards an unknown goal, and finding in that very lowly place, the Light of the World? It’s probably the best metaphor for the unversality of hope that I can think of!

We look forward to a ‘better’ 2021, even though we don’t know what will happen, except that it might be good. And some of it will be. There will most definitely be moments of darkness, of uncertainty, of loss. The reality is that the challenges of Covid, of climate change, of war and natural disaster, of political upheaval, and all the private and personal traumas are not suddenly going to go away. But there will also be joy, wonder, laughter, love, hope. All of it is real, and all of it is what it means to be human and to be alive.

The Magi didn’t know where they were going, but they went anyway. Because the beckoning light of Hope was too much, too big, too important to ignore, or to simply watch from afar.

With the brightest of blessings of love and hope for this year and all years.

Jude x