He is present in this assembly now, as we are gathered together, he is present when we sit with him in prayer, wanting to have an individual relationship with us the same way he had an individual relationship with all those people in the gospels who came to him and needed him. But of course we don’t believe that the eucharist is the only place he is really present, he isn’t bound by that limitation either. That’s what our church’s emphasis on real presence in the eucharist means, his actual presence and power are here, not just a picture of them but really here. He would be really present, the resurrection and the ascension mean he has overcome every boundary that stands between him and us. It not just that memories of Jesus would be present, or that we could use our imaginations to think about what his presence would be like. He didn’t really come out and say why this time after the resurrection would be better, but what he seemed to be saying was that in the future, his presence would not be limited, that the gift of his spirit now overcomes every dividing line of what is possible. This is not like a situation where a family or friends would be left abandoned to carry on as best they could without a beloved friend. Jesus told the disciples that the time after his death and resurrection would actually be better than having him with them physically. A new and better era has begun, just as he said it would.Īnd frankly this is what might be harder for them and for all of us to grasp than anything having to do with the ascension.

His power and his presence have not gone up there in order to go away from us. But on the other hand, these bystanders and divine messengers are trying to remind the disciples that “up there” isn’t where Jesus is to be found. These men ask them, why are you looking up there? On the one hand, of course it’s obvious why they are. What is the world after the ascension meant to be like for us? I think one clue for us is the question that gets posed to the disciples by the two mysterious bystanders as they are all standing looking up at the sky. That time without the risen Christ began for them at the ascension and that is the time we are all now living in, too. And now they have to accept something else, that now a new time has arrived, a time when the presence of Jesus has taken yet another form. On that first Easter they all found it hard to believe the story of the women, they all found it hard to accept that he was really back with them, that he had experienced life after death and shown them what it looked like.

But however it happened and however you picture it, this ascension is something Jesus told the disciples would happen, that after his resurrection his physical presence would only be with them for a while, and then their world would be turned upside down yet again. It’s a moment of spectacular special effects, maybe, or a religious vision that most of us have never experienced anything like. Jesus’s ascension is a very hard scene for us to picture.

Ascension of jesus 2022