May 24, 2001
© 2001 Grant M. Gallup
Acts 1:1-11 As they were watching, he was lifted up
or 2 Kings 2:1-15 A chariot of fire and horses of fire
Psalm 47 Omnes gentes, plaudite or 110:1-5 Dixit, Dominus
Ephesians 1:15-23 That he might create in himself one new humanity
Luke 24:49-53 He withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven
or Mark 16:9-15,19-20 [The longer ending of Mark]
We have just heard the last verses of volume one of Luke's writing, in his gospel, and the first verses of volume two, from the book of the Acts of the Apostles. The whole work is dedicated to, addressed to "Theophilus," not actally someone's name, it is thought, but two Greek words that mean "Lover of God", and the dedication to "God-Lover" comes at the beginning of each book. As the first volume ends, in which Luke says he has dealt with all that Jesus BEGAN to do and to teach, Luke tells us about the events which we have come to call the Ascension. And again, as he begins the first verses of the second volume, which we have come to call the Acts--that which Jesus continued to do in the apostles--we are again told of the Ascension events. In volume one, the Ascension takes place on the evening of the first Easter day, and in the Acts the Ascension happens after forty days of apperances of the Risen One. In this way Luke moves us towards understanding the Ascension not as a historical event, like the launching of a space craft from Cape Canaveral, but as a supra-historical Event. His use of the phrase "forty days" is not to be taken so literally that we can treat Eastertide like a count-down towards blast-off, and lose sight of the meaning of Ascension, a metaphor for taking power, of the elevation of the Rabbi Jesus to the office of Lord, of his being taken by Elijah's chariot to the Throne of God in a whirwind of living vision, as the Event of our continuing Easter.
The Resurrection and Ascension are One, that is, the vindiction of Jesus and his entitlement as Victor over death, and Liberator of all humanity, from The Empire that always means death--indeed He has become Liberator of the created world itself. What the Resurrction told us is that all that Jesus was and all that he taught, all that he lived, and his selfless death, have now been demonstrated to be stronger than death itself. Easter means that Jesus' way is the way that wins over all the violence possible, all the injustice that tries to undo the peaceful and the just. And the Ascension tells us in another metaphor that Jesus knows which way is up.
As the Ascension is his departure from the human limitations of his life in Galilee, it is also his arrival in the vibrant life of the gospels triumphant in all the earth. When someone leaves, someone must stay behind--that is the thrust of the first chapter of Acts. There are ways of staying behind that are helpful, and ways that are not helpful. There are empowering ways and disabling ways. The Church has often, since the first Ascension events, tended to do what Jesus asked us not to do when he charged us not to depart from Jerusalem--that is from the earthly city where we find ourselves in ministry--"stay in the city", he said. Stay engaged.
The angels of the Ascension query us, "Why do you stand gazing into heaven?" Jesus promised power and Holy Spirit for us to stay engaged here in the earth, but we have so spiritualized the struggle that we sing songs instead about "heavenly Jerusalem, of everlasting halls, thrice blesed are the people thou storest in thy walls." So Christian churches often became observation platforms for watching the heavens, and we got better at describing the life after death in heavenly realms, and booking passage thereunto, than we got at building the earthly cities where we have a mission from Rabbi Jesus to make all humankind One community, one synagogue, one gathering, and one Temple. The historical Jesus did in fact preach himself, in his kabbalah--his esoteric teaching---as the Temple that would be raised up in three days to replace the slaughterhouse religions of humankind. He is still doing it. The merchandised slaughterhouse religion of humankind now is not a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, leading oxen to the knife, lambs to the slaughter, doves to the fire, and parcelling out cutlets, but a U.S. domination system that rules by bloodshed, poison gas, venomous injections, and the enslavement of nations with money and with lies. Churchman Dick Cheney is High Priest of the latest sacrifice, and refuses mercy to a mad bomber. Kill, as an example, to teach all nations, and the teaching comes from a nation of killers.
But Jesus is given to us universally now, that everywhere we may respond to him, receive a portion of his Spirit, --his halakah--the teaching and practice of his lifetime as our Rabbi, just as Elisha received the double share of Elijah's spirit, so Jesus promised that we should do "greater things" than he, because he goes to the Father.
The disciples responded to Jesus, "Is it now that you will restore our sovereignty as a people? Will you give us back our dignity as a nation, take away the oppression of the Empire?" Jesus does not say to them 'You have mistaken my mission entirely, you should be thinking about the next world, Somewhere Over the Rainbow Skies Are Blue, High Above the Chimney Tops Where Dreams Come True.' Instead, Jesus responds to their most ardent hopes and says, "We can't know for certain of such things as when or where, but we know HOW -- you will get power only if you stay engaged, if your religion is bound to the earthly city, where you are to achieve it, and then you'll be able to witness to me and to my agenda for humankind everywhere, sharing my news in Judea and Samaria, in Nicaragua, and Evanston, in Iran and Iraq, and to the end of the ages.
Alice Meynell has written what to my mind is the finest Ascension poem, in her "Christ in the Universe".
With this ambiguous earth
His dealings have been told us. These abide:
The signal to a maid, the human birth,
The lesson, and the young Man crucified.But not a star of all
The innumerable host of stars has heard
How He administered this terrestrial ball.
Our race have kept their Lord's entrusted Word.Of His earth-visiting feet
None knows the secret, cherished, perilous,
The terible, shamefast, frightened, whispered, sweet
Heart-shatterering secret of His way with us.No planet knows that this
Our wayside planet, carrying land and wave,
Love and life multiplied, and pain and bliss
Bears, as chief treasure, one forsaken grave.Nor, in our little day,
May His devices with the heavens be guessed,
His pilgrimage to thread the Milky Way,
Or his bestowals there be manifest.But in the eternities,
Doubtless we shall compare together, hear
A million alien Gospels, in what guise
He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, theBear.O, be prepared, my soul!
To read the inconceivable, to scan
The million forms of God whose stars unroll
When, in our turn, we show to them a Man.
GRANT GALLUP
CASA AVE MARIA
MANAGUA, NICARAGUA C.A.
gallup@tmx.com.ni
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