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