Biblical Words [828]
Luke taught that the earthly work of Jesus had an end: the Ascension.
This Sunday is Ascension Sunday, the Sunday following the 40th day after Easter.
By the second generation of the Jesus Movement, Christians had come to believe that Jesus’ physical presence was extended after the day of the resurrection: Luke says Jesus spent forty days as a risen presence to the disciples – after which that physical presence definitely ceased. (One might say the Ascension put an end to Jesus' physical presence so the Spirit could replace it at Pentecost.)
Acts 1:6-14.
The Acts reading emphasizes three points for the disciples who must carry on after Jesus is gone. First, concerning the time of the final judgment they should not worry themselves. God will bring that judgment in God’s own time (verses 6-7).
Secondly, the disciples will receive the power of the Holy Spirit to enable them to carry out a vast mission program. That program (verse 8) will begin in Judea (that is, with the most observant Judeans), it will continue to the Samaritans (those “sort-of” Judeans who have their own way of living by the Law of Moses), and it will extend “to the ends of the earth” (where people have not lived by Moses at all). In Acts this final goal seems to mean all the way to Rome Galilee , where Mark and Matthew think the risen Jesus met and commissioned the disciples, Mark 16:7 and Matthew 28:16-17 .)
The third point is that the disciples gaze upward as Jesus departs from them, riding on the cloud to the heavenly realm. Those who knew the visions of Daniel well could recognize the ascension of the “one like a son of man,” who came up to heaven on the clouds to receive from God “dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him” (Daniel 7:13 -14).
The two angelic interpreters make clear to the disciples that this ascension is the opening bracket of the time until that heavenly Lord comes back to earth. He will return to earth in the same manner as this departure, then to carry out a vast judgment on all the peoples. The return visit by the Son of Man is anticipated in Luke 21:25-28 (following Mark 13:24 -27 ).
[See a fuller discussion of the Ascension in the Special Note at the end of these readings.]
Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35.
The Psalm reading is a couple of selections from a long and complicated composition. The whole psalm has many parts, and they go together only with difficulty and much scholarly straining and struggling. It is clear, however, that all the parts are hymnic or celebrative. They all exult in the triumphant and victorious character of the God here praised.
The first piece hopes for God’s victory, virtually resorting to sympathetic magic to bring it about.
Let God rise up, let his enemies be scattered…
As smoke is driven away, so drive them away;
as wax melts before the fire,
let the wicked perish before God (verses 1-2, NRSV
One can see the symbolic fire blazing away in the holy place and the smoke being dispersed by a strong breeze. A priestly figure brings wax images of the feared enemies near the fire and they melt away to a harmless blob. This is good news for the righteous, and the prayer concludes with a summons to them to rejoice in the Lord’s triumph.
Let the righteous be joyful;
let them exult before God;
let them be jubilant with joy (verse 3).
Thus a primitive cry for God to show power against threatening attackers comes eventually (for post-Easter Jesus followers) to celebrate the rise to power of a suffering servant.
Another piece of the psalm emphasizes how God’s power is exercised, for protection of the weak.
Father of orphans and protector of widows
is God in [God’s] holy habitation.
God gives the desolate a home to live in;
[God] leads out the prisoners to prosperity,
but the rebellious live in a parched land (verses 5-6).
A final piece uses ancient formulas to praise the power of God that is in the heavens, loaded with overtones for those thinking of the Ascension:
O rider in the heavens, the ancient heavens;
listen, he sends out his voice.
Ascribe power to God,
whose majesty is over Israel
and whose power is in the skies (verses 33-34).
The expression “rider in the heavens” is a variation on he “who rides upon the clouds” in verse 4. This was a standard title praising the storm god, Ba'al, in use in Canaan since the fourteenth century BCE , now applied to Yahweh, god of Israel 7:13 ).
For early Christians, all such language had found its ultimate meaning in the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus.
I Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11.
In the Epistle we hear the apostle’s final exhortations to those who suffer because of their faith. Such suffering is a blessing. “If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the spirit of God, is resting on you” (verse 14, NRSV).
The intensity of the trials leads the sufferers to believe that they struggle against the great power of evil itself. “Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him…”! (5:8-9).
The greatest comfort the apostle has to offer is that the great triumph – the equivalent to the ascension – will come after the suffering. “And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you” (verse 10).
John 17:1-11
The Gospel reading is from Jesus’ last words just before he leaves the disciples. After all the private instructions he has just given the disciples, Jesus prays. That is, he speaks to God instead of to others.
As do all these final discourses (in chapters 13-17), the farewell prayer (sometimes called the high-priestly prayer because it is an intercession for the believers) speaks from the perspective of the ultimate heavenly meaning of the work of Jesus.
I glorified you [Father] on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now… glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed (verses 4-5, NRSV ).
Jesus’ earthly work is finished – except that the crucifixion and the resurrection have yet to be carried out in mundane reality – and he is now ready to resume his heavenly status with the divine Parent.
That is the Johannine equivalent to the ascension.
Though Jesus is departing from the world, he is leaving the disciples behind, and here he prays for their protection and unity. This prayer does not mention the later coming of the Advocate (or Comforter), discussed in chapters 14 and 16. Here the disciples have received Jesus’ “words,” which are God’s words. That is their assurance and their power in the world:
“…for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me” (verse 8).
Jesus will ascend to the presence of the Parent, but he leaves behind the hearing, the experience, and the testimony of those whom Jesus has saved for the Parent.
The testimony that the disciples will make to the heavenly glory was anticipated at the beginning of the Gospel:
“…the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14 ).
Special Note on the Ascension of Jesus.
The Ascension is a specific event only in the writings of Luke. Here are the two descriptions of it in the Gospel and in Acts.
In the Gospel, Jesus appeared to the Eleven, showed them his body with the crucifixion wounds, and ate some food. “Then he led them out as far as Bethany
The same narrator took up the Ascension at the beginning of Acts. Here the conception of the event is more developed, including the forty days (which appears no where else). “After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God” (1:3).
Having told them to stay around Jerusalem
…as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (1:9-11).
The Luke narratives have three clear emphases.
1) Jesus’ resurrection body was real flesh and blood. He was touched, ate food, and hung out for forty days.
2) The next main event in God’s reign is going to happen in Jerusalem Galilee ,” are not to go home but to stay in the holy city. As God promised, the Holy Spirit will take charge of future developments, which will move out from there.
3) The Ascension was a real, visual event with a specific time and place. It happened forty-three days after the crucifixion, on the hill east of Jerusalem Mount of Olives ) near the village of Bethany
Also in Luke’s view, the Ascension happened as the reverse of the coming of the “Son of Man” prophesied in the Gospel: “Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory” (Luke 21:27 , NRSV ). In the Ascension scene Jesus does not yet have the “power and great glory,” but both Luke and his hearers knew where that power would be bestowed upon this Son of Man.
The Ascension took Jesus to the heavenly court, and the scene there is clearly portrayed in the vision of Daniel.
As I watched,
Thrones were set in place,
and an Ancient One took his throne…
The court sat in judgment,
and the books were opened…
I saw one like a human being [literally “a son of man”]
Coming [up] with the clouds of heaven.
And he came to the Ancient One
and was presented before him.
To him was given dominion
and glory and kingship,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him. (Daniel 7:9, 13-14, NRSV.)
The Ascension was the beginning of that transit from earth into God’s presence to receive the Messiah’s reign (the Christ’s reign) over the principalities and powers.
The Luke writings are from the second generation of Jesus followers – around 90 CE give or take ten years. The first generation had simply proclaimed the risen Jesus as already exalted to heaven where he entered into power seated on the right hand of God (Philippians 2:9-11; Romans 1:4 Mark 14:62 Acts 7:56
This second generation, no longer expecting the imminent Return of the Lord, provides the strong emphasis on the physicality of Jesus’ risen body and on the Ascension as an event. This second generation “rationalism,” if you will, eventually carried the day, and the Apostle’s Creed, of approximately 200 CE in Rome, declared as the belief of faithful Christians that Jesus “ascended into heaven, [and was] seated at the right hand of the Father.”
If a modern believer is ever to be embarrassed by the “three-story-universe” of Biblical cosmology, the Ascension must surly be the occasion.
Jesus passed up into the clouds over the Mount of Olives and went – where? Through the ages Christian theologians have either ignored the issue or been embarrassed by it. (See the survey of views on the Ascension by Norman R. Gulley in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. I, p. 473.) If one takes the Ascension literally, one’s view of the universe is seriously affected. If one takes it symbolically, it becomes a way of referring to some higher reality, usually understood as an amplification of the basic doctrine of the Resurrection.
A Literal Approach.
"The ascension may be described as the visible ascent of the person of the Mediator from earth to heaven, according to His human nature. It was a local transition, a going from place to place. This implies, of course, that heaven is a place as well as earth. But the ascension of Jesus was not merely a transition from one place to another; it also included a further change in the human nature of Christ. That nature now passed into the fullness of heavenly glory and was perfectly adapted to the life of heaven. Some Christian scholars of recent date consider heaven to be a condition rather than a place, and therefore do not conceive of the ascension locally. [He cites works by W. Milligan, A.B. Swete, and a certain Gore.] They will admit that there was a momentary lifting up of Christ in the sight of the Eleven, but regard this only as a symbol of the lifting up of our humanity to a spiritual order far above our present life. The local conception, however, is favored by [several] considerations… "
Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, New Combined Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1996, original publications 1932 and 1938), p. 350 (in second pagination).
Karl Barth.
"As the empty tomb looks downward, the ascension looks upwards. But again the ascension—Jesus’ disappearance into heaven—is the sign of the Resurrected, not the Resurrected Himself. “Heaven” in biblical language is the sum of the inaccessible and incomprehensible side of the created world, so that, although it is not God Himself, it is the throne of God, the creaturely correspondence to his glory, which is veiled from man, and cannot be disclosed except on His initiative. There is no sense in trying to visualize the ascension as a literal event, like going up in a balloon. The achievements of Christian art in this field are amongst its worst perpetrations. But of course this is no reason why they should be used to make the whole thing ridiculous. The point of the story is not that when Jesus left His disciples He visibly embarked upon a wonderful journey into space, but that when He left them He entered the side of the created world which was provisionally inaccessible and incomprehensible, that before their eyes He ceased to be before their eyes. This does not mean, however, that He ceased to be a creature, man. What it does mean is that He showed Himself quite unequivocally to be the creature, the man, who in provisional distinction from all other men lives on the God-ward side of the universe, sharing His throne, existing and acting in the mode of God, and therefore to be remembered as such, to be known once for all as this exalted creature, this exalted man, and henceforth to be accepted as the One who exists in this form to all eternity."
"...before their eyes He ceased to be before their eyes" !
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics. Vol. III, The Doctrine of Creation, Part 2, ed. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance (Edinburgh
A Symbolic Approach: Paul Tillich.
[Tillich discusses the Ascension under the heading, “Symbols Corroborating the Symbol ‘Resurrection of the Christ’.” (Systematic Theology, Vol. II, pp. 159-164.) These symbols together refer to "postexistence," that is, the Christ’s existence after the historical Jesus. Such symbols, besides Ascension, are: Sitting at the right hand of God, Ruling over the church, the Millennium (thousand-year reign over the righteous), the Second Coming, and the Judgment of the world. All of these symbols "corroborate the Resurrection from the point of view of its consequences for the Christ, his church, and his world."]
"These start with the symbol of the Ascension of the Christ. In some ways this is a reduplication of the Resurrection but is distinguished from it because it has a finality which contrasts markedly with the repeated experiences of the Resurrected. The finality of his separation from historical existence, indicated in the Ascension, is identical with his spiritual presence as the power of the New Being but with the concreteness of his personal countenance. [The Ascension puts a face on Jesus’ reality within a spiritual dimension?] It is therefore another symbolic expression of the same event which the Resurrection expresses. If taken literally, its spatial symbolism would become absurd." (Systematic Theology, II, pp. 161-62.)
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