What Ascension Day means for the story of God

The days in the Christian calendar between Ascension Day and Pentecost are such a bizarre mystery to me.

Perhaps I can assign some blame to my upbringing. I can't remember ever hearing about Ascension Day in the church I grew up in. I owe a lot of good things to that church experience, but the calendar wasn't something that shaped us. We didn’t really do the calendar. Oh, there was Christmas and Easter. Advent was a countdown to Christmas, and pretty much synonymous with “Christmas season” right after Thanksgiving. Our church had a Maundy Thursday drama. I don’t think I can tell you when I first heard about Ascension as a part of the calendar. Probably at the chapel when I was in seminary.

Years later, I read Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church by N.T. Wright (that subtitle is doing a whole lot of work there), and I couldn’t believe it. As he told the story, it seemed that Ascension was the interpretative key that unlocked pretty much everything we do as Church. So what’s missing?

Rooted in the Story of Scripture

We are people of The Story. As human beings, we make meaning through stories. The Christian faith is one big story, and the calendar is one way we tell it. There are three major movements throughout the year—what God does in the Incarnation, what God does in the Resurrection, and then what we, the Church, do in response. We tell a story cycle of Incarnation, that God put on flesh and blood and entered time and space to rescue the world. The sorrow of the night turns to the joy of the morning. This is what we celebrate in the seasons of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany.

Then there is the story cycle of Resurrection. Death is conquered by life. This is what we remember in the seasons of Lent, Easter, and Pentecost. These two cycles show us what the God of Divine Love has done on behalf of human beings. Then, in the second half of the year, we tell the story of the Church, what we now get to do in response to God’s love for us. This is called Ordinary Time. Now we live our lives to the very fullest.

And so, the journey to Ascension begins first with a penitent descent. We start Lent with Ash Wednesday and we enter into the wilderness with Jesus—with echoes of Israel’s 40 years in the wilderness. We come to Holy Week. We wash one another’s feet as we hear Jesus’ new command, “Love one another.” We hear Jesus’ invitation to pray with him in the garden. And then we witness the horror of the cross, the angry, ugly, defiant echoes of every generation of humans saying “No!” to God.

But then we find the empty tomb. We sit with the mysteriousness and disorientation of Easter morning. We join the disciples as Jesus surprises them and us one moment after another. And this brings us to Ascension.

We find the story of Jesus' ascension in the final scene of Luke, and again in the opening scene of Acts.

And now, 40 days after the Passover feast, Jesus has one more surprise for his disciples. Here’s how the writer of Acts puts it.

Put your imagination to work. Where do you find yourself in this story? Take a pause with each verse. If you were to imagine making a film of this scene, where are you setting the camera? What tokens or faces or gestures do you find yourself drawn to? What’s the focus of the frame? Take your time to linger in the scene and engage all your senses.

As you are taking in this full scene, what emotions are you noticing? What feelings are rising in you? Are you inspired and impassioned by Jesus’ words about the Kingdom? Are you shocked when Jesus disappears? Are you angry at what the angels have to say?

What Ascension Does For Us

But the theological reality of Ascension is really captured in these words of Hebrews 4:

"So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most."

With the ascension, Jesus is installed as the Good King (which is what the words "messiah" and "Christ" mean), on a throne, over all of creation. Incarnate flesh-and-blood God is now in heaven. In charge. With authority.

But that's not to say that Jesus has gone away to heaven and abandoned us here on earth. It would be absurd to think that Jesus “died and went to heaven.” I think as a younger Christian when I encountered this story, I imagined Jesus floating in the sky like a balloon that had slipped away. The world of Harry Potter has given me a different take.

In the Harry Potter books and movies, the wizarding world exists side-by-side with the regular world. The "muggles" (normal people who don't know magic) don't know that it's there. They don't have eyes to see it. So when Harry goes to the train station for the very first time to go away to wizarding school, he walks up to platform 9 3/4 and steps through what appears to be a brick wall only to find himself amongst fellow classmates eager to board the Hogwarts Express.

Could it be that's what happens in the Ascension? That Jesus takes a step behind the curtain? He's right there, but our eyes just aren't quite adjusted to see? Because in Hebrews 4, it's clear that Jesus the person is accessible and approachable here and now. He didn't beam away to the other side of the universe. Heaven isn’t far away, but right here, if we have eyes to see it.

The disciples in Acts witness Jesus go, and then they wait. And then they wait. And wait. And wait. For 10 days. What a weird liminal space that must have felt like. It's all the tension between a promise-made and a promise-fulfilled. There's the emotional gap right in the middle.

There’s a popular saying in theology about God’s kingdom, that it’s “already and not yet.” They may feel like opposite things, but they can both be true at the same time. The Spirit of Jesus is always with us. We’re still waiting for the Spirit of Jesus to make everything new. Both true at the same time.

What difference does the outpouring of God's Spirit make in this world where the grief and trauma and loss pile on day after day after day? If we take the story seriously, it makes all the difference in the world.

Where We Find Ascension in the Liturgy

Imagine a big “V.” At the top of one point is Ash Wednesday. The season of Lent is the journey downward. Not quite to the bottom is Holy Week, and Easter Sunday is the turning point. The season of Eastertide is the rise to the next point, with Ascension close to the end and Pentecost the very top that launches us into the next season of the calendar. In Ordinary Time, we live empowered by the Holy Spirit, engaged in God’s mission healing the whole world.

The Anglican liturgy for communion each week tells the story, beginning with the love of God creating the world and leading with this climax: “As our great high priest, he ascended to your right hand in glory, that we might come with confidence before the throne of grace.” This echoes the language of Hebrews 8. There’s a whole lot that could be unpacked here.

Hebrews 8 begins with the words, “We have a High Priest who sat down in the place of honor beside the throne of the majestic God in heaven. There he ministers in the heavenly Tabernacle, the true place of worship that was built by the Lord and not by human hands.” It then goes on to recall words from Jeremiah 31 to talk about how Jesus continues to act on our behalf here and now. As a priest, Jesus works to bring heaven and earth together. In our liturgy, the Ascension has all the narrative release of tension that Sin and Death introduced to the story. Jesus has been given everything he needs to heal the world.

Furthermore, the Book of Common Prayer includes a collect especially for Ascension Day:

Almighty God, whose only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven: May our hearts and minds also there ascend, and with him continually dwell; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

It highlights the intimate bond among the Trinity, while reminding us of the risen and ascended Jesus’ place in it. It also reminds us how we get to participate with Jesus. As Jesus has come alongside us in suffering and death in this world, he now invites us to come alongside him with boldness and confidence. Jesus is with us, and we are with him. Always.

How Does the Ascension Form Us?

The Ascension is every bit as important to the story as Creation, the Incarnation, and the Resurrection. This is a big deal. Because Jesus has defeated death and evil, he sits enthroned as King over all of creation. And this touches everything.

After Jesus disappears from their midst, the disciples wait for 10 days. What do you imagine they discussed together? What might their prayers have sounded like? What were they feeling? Was it taking longer than they thought? What were they desiring for themselves and from God?

There’s something special about anticipation. It could be a special day—like Christmas, a vacation, or a wedding. It could be a reunion with a separated friend or family member. Anticipation is also really hard because we want something we don’t have, and there can be a sense of not being in control. There can be an ache in that.

Tension. And release. This rhythm runs so counter to our culture of instant gratification. We’re so bad at waiting that we turn to AI for our questions and demand same-day shipping for our shopping.

For the 10 days between Ascension and Pentecost, we, too, find ourselves in a liminal space—an awkward in-between space, wanting something we don’t yet have—waiting for the Holy Spirit to do what only the Holy Spirit can do. We sit in the tension, yet not as those without hope. God’s promise is coming. Jesus is King, and we can be filled with confidence.

• What is something you are waiting on God to do?
• What mix of grief and hope (perhaps something else) is there in your waiting?
• If Jesus is indeed King, what difference does that make in your world?
• What are you really desiring from God in this season?
• What might God be shaping inside you in the liminal space?
• Where is God growing confidence in you?

Some last words

The liminal space between Ascension and Pentecost doesn’t have to be strange. Ascension invites us to pray. To pray and to wait and to imagine a whole new way of being in the world.

“The ascension demands that we think differently about how the whole cosmos is, so to speak, put together and that we also think differently about the church and about salvation.” —N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope

Psalms 47 and 93 are especially good places for study or contemplation on Ascension Day and the week leading to Pentecost. Alongside Jesus’ words in John 14–16, they remind us that we are people of The Story. There is bold trust and confident joy that we can tap into. Despite all the evidence that tries to persuade us otherwise, Jesus has everything he needs to run the world with wisdom, grace, justice, and equity. Heaven is with us, if we have eyes to see it, and it is healing the whole world.