Today is Ascension Day, the day on which we commemorate Jesus’ departure from Earth and his return to heaven. It’s a day that is described both at the very end of the Gospel of Luke (24:50-53) and at the very beginning of Luke’s second volume of scripture, the Book of Acts (1:9-11). It’s 40 days after our celebration of his resurrection from the dead on Easter Sunday because that’s how many days that Jesus spent with his disciples after his resurrection (Acts 1:3). And so it’s a day that always falls on a Thursday, in the middle of the week, a day that is so easily and so often overlooked in the church calendar. And yet it was one of John Wesley’s favorite holidays, and his brother Charles wrote a hymn to commemorate the day, “Hail the Day That Sees Him Rise” (#312 in our United Methodist Hymnal).
It’s also an event that is depicted in this woodcut that the brother of a church member from a previous church I served in Knoxville lovingly and carefully hand-crafted for me after I had preached a sermon there on Jesus’ ascension (it must have been an “uplifting” message). I think of this wood carving every time Ascension Day rolls around. I marvel at the time it must have taken Jerry to create this woodcut by hand with his jigsaw and at the artistry evident in all the details. Jesus’ raised eyebrow as his gaze turns heavenward. The looks on the faces of the disciples that convey all kinds of emotions – awe, surprise, confusion. The tears rolling down the face of one of the disciples. The arm of one reaching around the shoulders of another to comfort and to console.
I never know quite what to make of this story. The times I’ve dared to preach on it, I feel like I’ve only just scratched the surface. Only just dipped my toe in the mystery and the majesty of it all. It’s like the woodcut itself – it’s a lot deeper than it looks, more layers than there appears. But as I look at the woodcut today, I find myself drawn to that one disciple with his arm around the other.
Of the eleven disciples depicted here (and, remember, at this point there were only eleven left), ten of them are looking up to Jesus, which is a pretty good place to look, really. After all, “turn your eyes upon Jesus,” we sing, “look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace” (United Methodist Hymnal, 349). And that’s probably where I would have been looking, too, at Jesus.
Then there’s one of the disciples, the one in the middle, who seems to be looking down, his head deep and dark, empty and heavy, weighed down with sadness and grief.
But then there’s the one who’s not looking up at Jesus in wonder and awe, nor looking down in grief and sadness, but rather he’s looking across at his friend, his fellow disciple, his brother in Christ. I wonder which one of the disciples he was. Probably not hotheaded Peter or the ambitious James or John. Possibly it was practical-minded Thomas. But whichever one he was, maybe he’s the one who really gets what’s going on here. Maybe he’s the one who realizes that if Jesus Christ really is ascending and won’t be around for us in the same way anymore, then we’re going to have to be there for one another. We’re going to have to care for one another. We’re going to have to be Christ for one another.
I don’t know. I’m still contemplating this. And I could well be wrong about this as I am about such a great many things. But maybe this wasn’t just the day that Jesus ascended into heaven. Maybe this was also the day the church arose upon the earth.
Pastor Dave
The Keith Church Blog 