The Ascension - 5/17/2010 12:42pm

This past week marked the Feast of the Ascension, remembering Jesus’ bodily ascension into heaven from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, as recounted in Acts 1: 6-12. Here’s the story:

                           Salvadore Dali.  The Ascension of Christ (1958).

So when they met together, they asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”
Then they returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk from the city.

The Book of Acts gives us the most detailed account of Jesus’ ascension, but Scripture mentions the event in several other places, as well. In Luke 24: 50-51, we read: “When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up to heaven.” In John 20: 17 Jesus alludes to the ascension when he says to Mary Magdalene: “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Paul says Jesus “was taken up in glory” (1 Timothy 3: 16) and “ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the entire universe” (Ephesians 4: 10). Peter notes that Jesus “has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him” (1 Peter 3: 22). Mark observes that “After the Lord had spoken to [the disciples], he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God” (Mark 16: 19). And at the conclusion of his defense before the Sanhedrin, Stephen famously remarks: “Look . . . I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7: 56). Apparently, Jesus stood up to applaud as Stephen brought his defense to a dramatic close!

The Ascension is one of the oldest feasts in Christendom, along with Lent, Easter and Pentecost, all dating back to at least the third century A.D. The Ascension is referred to explicitly in the Nicene Creed (A.D. 325) and the Apostles’ Creed (mentioned by St. Ambrose as an established creed in a letter to Pope Siricius c. A.D. 390). St. Augustine (A.D. 354-430) writes that the Ascension originated with the Apostles, and he speaks of it in a way that suggests it was universally observed in the Church long before his time.

In the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches the Ascension marks the culmination of the Incarnation, observing not only the completion of Jesus’ physical presence among humanity, but also the consummated union of God and man as Jesus takes his seat at the right hand of God the Father.

In the Protestant world the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) states: “On the third day He arose from the dead, with the same body in which He suffered, with which also He ascended into heaven, and there sits at the right hand of His Father . . .” (Chapter 8, Article 4). A normative statement for the Reformed tradition in Calvinism, it is especially influential in the Presbyterian Church and widely accepted throughout the rest of the Protestant world.

Interestingly, Islam also recognizes Jesus’ ascension. The Qur’an reads: “And for their [the evil doers] saying, ‘We killed the Messiah Jesus the son of Mary, the Messenger of God.’ Yet they did not kill him nor crucify him, but it was only made to appear to them so. And surely those who disagree about it are doubtful and have no knowledge of it, but only follow conjecture, and certainly they did not kill him. But God lifted him up to Him, and God is Almighty, All Wise.” (Sûrah 4: 157-158).

Western Christianity dates Easter on the first Sunday, after the first full moon, after the Spring Equinox. Easter is therefore a “moveable feast”: since the Spring Equinox is March 21, the earliest Easter can occur is March 22 and the latest it can occur is April 25. Since Easter is always a Sunday, and Ascension is forty days after Easter, Ascension always occurs on a Thursday, April 30 at the earliest and June 23 at the latest. In Western Church tradition, Rogation Days are celebrated during the three days leading up to Ascension Thursday: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. “Rogation” is from the Latin verb rogare, “to ask.” Introduced by Bishop Mamertus of Vienna around A.D. 470, the custom is linked with the previous Sunday, where the Gospel reading in the Roman Catholic liturgy includes John 16: 24, “Ask and you will receive.” Traditionally, these were days of fasting, during which farmers prayed for good crops and had their newly planted fields blessed. Although Rogation Days are associated with Roman Catholic and Anglican traditions, they are rarely practiced today, having fallen by the liturgical wayside. In many countries the Roman Catholic Church has moved the celebration of Ascension from Thursday, forty days after Easter, to the following Sunday to amplify its position in the liturgy and to encourage more people to observe it.

The Ascension is frequently portrayed in Christian art and iconography. One of the most striking portrayals is Salvadore Dali’s (1904-1989) The Ascension of Christ (1958), which I’ve reproduced above. Dali said that the inspiration for his “Ascension” came from a “cosmic dream” that he had in 1950 in which he saw the nucleus of an atom—which we see in the background of the painting, looking very much like the center of a sunflower. Dali realized later that the vision was really a representation of the unifying force of Christ, as Paul said in Colossians 1: 17—“He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” In the painting the feet of Christ point at the viewer, drawing the eye inward toward the center of the atom. Christ’s feet in the foreground and his outstretched arms in the background form a triangle, a structure he first used in his Christ of St. John of the Cross (1951). The woman above looking down at Christ with the dove of the Holy Spirit beneath her chin is Gala Dali, Salvadore Dali’s muse, lover and wife, a frequent model in Dali’s work. Notice tears streaming from her eyes.

The painting resides in the private collection of Mexican industrialist, Juan Antonio Pérez Simón. It is showing publically for the first time in an exhibit at Museé Jacquemart-André in Paris, March 12-August 1, 2010.