Conversation in Faith

The Christian celebration of the Ascension happens 40 days after Easter Sunday (sometimes observed on the next Sunday after that date). It is the remembrance of Jesus ascending to heaven. It is the last time the disciples saw or spoke with the human person Jesus. It’s not surprising that people wonder what actually happened during the ascension. What does it mean that Jesus was “carried up into heaven”? Or as Acts says, “… he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.”¹ For modern persons, heaven is not someplace up in the sky. So we wonder, how and where did Jesus go?

Jesus is not the only person Scripture describes as being taken up into heaven. Enoch, Elijah, Ezra, and Moses are also taken up into heaven.² The Romans had their own kind of ascension, “…by Paul’s day the custom was well established of emperors being declared to be divine after their death, with the evidence produced consisting of one or two witnesses who had glimpsed the soul of the dead emperor ascending towards the heavens.”³ So while not exactly identical to Jesus’ ascension, the idea that someone, either in body or Spirit, would ascend to heaven was not unheard of. It wasn’t as odd an idea to people in the first century as it is to us.

It’s not possible for us to know exactly what happened during Jesus’ ascension or to precisely locate “heaven”. While it is interesting to speculate, we might be better off to pay attention to what Jesus’ final instructions to his disciples were. That is something we can know and respond to.

Then he [Jesus] said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you–that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised, so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple blessing God. Luke 24:44-53 NRSVue

The Ascension is also described in Acts. The disciples ask, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”. Jesus replies, “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.” Acts 1:6b-8 NRSVue

Jesus does not give them a timeline. He does not tell them to wait indefinitely until the kingdom comes. He sets them, and us, a task to do. Disciples are to be witnesses. Witnesses for what? For the teaching of Jesus. They are to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins to all nations.

Repentance, in the Bible, mostly involves changing the way one acts. Regret is part of repentance. But the end goal of repentance is not that we feel guilty, it’s that we change – our thinking and our lives. We turn to God and try to live lives that embody life in the kingdom of God- lives of justice, kindness, love, and peace. In Hebrew the word translated as repentance is shub, which describes a turning back or retracing of steps- as in turning back to God. In Greek the word is metanoein, which has a similar meaning of changing how one thought in order to change how one acts.⁴

As witnesses, the disciples are to tell about Jesus and the Kingdom of God. The disciples are to begin where they are, in Jerusalem, and then to continue to tell about Jesus and the kingdom throughout the world. The term “nations” doesn’t necessarily mean political states, as we think of nations. It is a way of talking about non-Israelite people. Sometimes instead of being translated as “nations”, the word gentiles” is used.  The point is that the good news of Jesus and the kingdom is not for a few, but it is for everyone.

Jesus’ ascension message to the original disciples and to us is to tell everyone about Jesus, who he is and what he taught and to invite people into life in the kingdom of God. That’s it. And that is surely enough. Invite people to join us in the way of Jesus. The original disciples had Jesus himself to explain what that means. We have the gospels and the quite imperfect witness of the church to help guide us.

In these days when Christian Nationalism is attempting to co-opt the faith and the government, it becomes important to be clear about what Jesus’ message is and is not. There is no call, anywhere in the gospels to take over and control a government. There is no call to create a Christian nation. Even if you think that the founders intended the United States to be a Christian nation, that idea is not supported by the New Testament. Jesus is not calling on his followers to legislate “Christian” behaviors and actions. He is not calling on his followers to force compliance. The gospel is always an invitation, freely offered and freely accepted.

One of the striking things about Jesus, post resurrection, is that his message is unchanged. How he relates to people is unchanged. There is no Jesus revenge tour. There is no getting even. There is no punishment. It is always an invitation to turn or return to the God who loves all that they have created.

1. Acts 1:9 NRSVue. Matthew’s gospel has a commissioning of the disciples but no description of the ascension. ↩︎
2. Gen 5:24; 2 Kings 2:11; As.Mos.10:12; and 2 Esdr 14:9 ↩︎
3. N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, Fortress Press, 2003, 656. See also pages 55-60 ↩︎
4. Matera, Frank J, and Mark Allen Powell, “Repentance”, in HarperCollins Bible Dictionary, Revised and Updated, 3rd Ed. The SOciety of Biblical LIterature, 2011 ↩︎