Monthly Archives: May 2025

It Was Necessary that Jesus Ascend

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With the celebrations of Christmas and Easter and, to some extent, Pentecost, the celebration of Ascension seems to get lost in the shuffle, something of an afterthought if it is thought about at all. Part of the trouble is that it isn’t all that easy to get an idea of what the Ascension is all about, so we wonder: What ‘s the big deal? We celebrated Jesus’s birth at Christmas and his rising from the dead at Easter. What more do we need? Isn’t the Resurrection enough? According to Luke and John the answer is: No.

Another part of the trouble is that the Ascension is a downer with Jesus leaving his disciples. The first aria in J.S. Bach’s Ascension Oratorio is a long lament over Jesus’ departure. Hardly a cause for celebration. If Jesus loves us enough to come to earth and spend time with us, why would Jesus leave us?

Distance as well as closeness, however, typifies our relationship with God. It is put succinctly in the Psalm verse: “For though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly.” (Ps. 138: 6) In theological terms, God is radically transcendent, but also radically imminent. God’s immediate presence wouldn’t be all that awesome if God were not transcendent as well, and a god who remains aloof from humans doesn’t exactly catch the heart of humans. Moreover, God’s distance gives humans space to live by decisions humans make while God’s closeness offers guidance to those who are open to it.

Luke describes a forty day period during which Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God and the forgiveness of sins. Most importantly, Jesus opens up the scriptures to the disciples by explaining why it was “necessary” that he suffer and rise from the dead. (As Luke and the other Gospel writers make clear, the “necessity” is human, not divine.) All of these are good thing, such good things that it is puzzling why Jesus would leave rather than continue with them. So what was the problem?

On the road to Emmaus, Cleopas and his companion told Jesus (while not recognizing him) that they had hoped he would “redeem Israel.” (Lk. 24: 21) In opening the scriptures to these two companions, Jesus shifted their lost hope to the need for Jesus to die and rise again. But after opening the scriptures for another forty days, Jesus was still asked: “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1: 6) At this point, it was clear that, as long as Jesus was with the disciples, they would be distracted from his opening the scriptures to them. The temptation to triangle Jesus into their human agenda seems to have been irresistible as long as Jesus was physically present. Only if Jesus left them would they have the space to let the scriptures be opened to them so that they could understand the need for Jesus to have died and risen again. Jesus’ leaving also left the disciples as vulnerable to other humans as Jesus himself was while on earth, putting them, and us, in the position of suffering at their hands.

A second reason for the need for Jesus to ascend after a relatively brief time after his Resurrection builds on the first reason but also reinstates the dialectic of transcendence and imminence that had been temporarily compromised by Jesus’ Incarnate presence on earth. In John, Jesus says that only if he goes away can he send the Paraclete to guide them in all truth. In Luke, Jesus promises the disciples that the Holy Spirit will soon come if they wait in Jerusalem. Sure enough, ten days later, the Holy Spirit comes in tongues of fire, giving the disciples the gift of tongues so that they can communicate with other peoples. More importantly, the Holy Spirit guides the disciples into understanding the scriptures that Jesus had opened up for them so that not only did they finally understand that Jesus had to die and rise again, they were inspired to preach this truth along with proclaiming the forgiveness of sins.

In Ephesians, Paul proclaims the reality of the crucified, risen, and ascended Lord, seated at God’s right hand “in the heavenly places.” (Eph. 1: 20) Jesus may be exalted, with “all things under his feet,” but this exalted Jesus remains the crucified Lord who had to die before being so highly exalted. That is, we are not under the rule of a powerful deity, we are under the rule of the crucified one who rose with total forgiveness of those who tortured and killed him. It is this crucified, risen and ascended Lord who appeared to Stephen when he was being stoned for preaching what the Holy Spirit had inspired him to preach, and it was the exalted Jesus who filled Stephen with the same forgiveness of his persecutors. The ascended Lord may be infinitely up on high, but this same Lord sends the Holy Spirit deep into our hearts with the same apostolic message of forgiveness he gave to the disciples.

Dwelling in Sacred Space

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When I read Mircea Eliade as a college student, one of the first things I learned from him was the importance of sacred space, of a designated space being the center of the world. The designation might seem arbitrary in that it could be any space, sort of like Winnie-the-Pooh and Christopher Robin planting a pole in the ground and proclaiming it the North Pole. But once a space was designated as sacred, it truly was sacred ground and treated as such. Although the sacred space could be anywhere to begin with, there is a tendency to see certain landscapes, such as tall mountains and luminous lakes, as more likely to be considered holy space than others.

The early humans who designated sacred space didn’t have any notion of confining God to a certain spot. They instinctively knew that God is everywhere, but they also felt the need to focus. Solomon shares the same insight in his prayer at the dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem when he says: “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less this house that I have built! “ (1 Kings 8: 27) Although the Israelites knew that God is everywhere, the temple was a focal point for Jewish piety. The Psalmist exulted in dwelling in the temple with God and longed for it desperately when torn away from it when taken into exile. I have the same sort of experience with the churches I worshiped in while growing up and with the Abbey Church where I have worshiped for more years than I can count. During the Eucharist, I keep getting the sense that the Abbey Church has become the center of the world as the bread and wine is consecrated. Not that the abbey is the only center of the world. There are countless more. As a practical matter, it is much easier to appreciate the fact that God is everywhere and act accordingly when a particular place is entered at a specific time to focus on God. By practicing decorum and reverence in a designated place, we are more apt to practice decorum, and reverence elsewhere.

Stemming from the insight of early humans and Solomon that the Temple cannot contain God are the various prophetic critiques of misuses of the temple for personal advantage of one sort or another. Jeremiah, for example, warned against trusting in words such as “This is the temple of the Lord! The temple of the Lord! The temple of the Lord.” (Jer. 7: 4) Hosea insisted that God preferred mercy to burnt offerings. (Hos. 6: 6) Jesus’ act of driving out the money changers was a climax of such prophecies. In Matthew’s version of this story, Jesus then heals the blind and the lame, (Mt. 21: 14) suggesting that such healing is much more in line of what the temple is for than changing money to keep the sacrifices going. Matthew’s placing of these acts of healing seem out of context, but they allude to an odd incident when David attacked the Jebusites and took the city. The defenders taunted David by saying that even the blind and the lame would be able to stop him. (2 Sam. 5: 6) David was believed to hate the blind and the lame as a result of the taunt, but it is more likely that David hated the able-bodied defenders who taunted him. One could say that Jesus was fulfilling David’s conquest of Jerusalem by healing the blind and the lame. In the end, nobody is going to stop Jesus.

John adds that Jesus implied that he himself is the Temple when he said that if the Temple is destroyed, he can rebuild it in three days. (Jn. 2: 19) St. Paul and St. Peter famously extended the human temple to everybody. St. Paul said that each of us is God’s temple, (1 Cor. 6: 10) and St. Peter said we are all living stones “built into a spiritual house.” (1 Pet. 2: 5) Jesus was a particular person who lived on earth at a particular time and place, but he has extended his sanctity as a temple to each of us, not least the blind and lame whom he cured in the temple. In his climactic teaching in Matthew, Jesus said that what we do and don’t do for the “least” of people is done, or not done, to him. (Mt. 25) Peter adds depth to this teaching by reminding us that Jesus was the stone rejected by the builders which has become the cornerstone. (1 Peter. 2: 7) God continues to build God’s house, God’s temple with stones rejected by those who would build human culture.

Just as sacred space can be, and is, anywhere and everywhere, everybody can be, and in fact is, a temple of God. We should treat ourselves and each other accordingly with decorum and reverence.