Mark 16:1-7 (NRSV Updated Edition)
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.”
Acts 1:6-11 (NRSV Updated Edition)
So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When he had said this, 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.”
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"[I]n Mark's resurrection account there is a little hint of the Ascension. Here Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James, and Salome come to the tomb. As they entered the tomb they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side and they were alarmed. That's all it says: sitting on the right side. So here is the new Holy of Holies with an angel sitting on the right side. This symbolizes that the One who is not here, is in fact now sitting on the right-hand side of God. That's the message of the Ascension, that the Son of Man who has performed the sacrifice is now enthroned at God's right hand. That fulfils the prophecy in ... Daniel 7 which explains exactly how this was going to happen.
"So I think that an earlier generation would have picked up that this was a reference to everything having been fulfilled, but because we've got rather more used to, if you like, the helicopter imagery, we're less aware of what is meant by the Ascension. We think of it much more in terms of physical liftoff than how it would have been considered by the earliest readers of Mark, by the earliest Christian thinkers. Because it seems both in Mark and in Luke's account that they are thinking of ascension, of ascent, of lifting up, much more in terms of the throne visions of the Holy Place in the temples, starting with Isaiah's which is very clearly referenced in Luke's account.
"So here in Luke's account, we have, after Jesus has interacted with his disciples after his resurrection, he's told them that they will receive power when the Holy Spirit will come upon them and he's going to send them to the rest of the world. And as he said this he was lifted up while they looked on, and a cloud took him from their side. The same verb, lifted up, is used to describe the vision of Isaiah in the year the King Uzziah died, this is Isaiah 6: “I saw the Lord high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple, and the house was filled with smoke.” Smoke meaning clouds of incense. So here we have the lifting up and the clouds. Fairly soon [at Pentecost], the house will be filled, the house where the disciples are is being filled, as part of the Lord's train now comes down upon amongst them. In fact at the beginning of [Acts], we have the, if you like, living out on earth of Isaiah's throne vision.
"We get the throne vision in Daniel as well and all of this is important to understand what's going on in the ascension, rather than it being a matter of how Jesus physically departed, i.e. vertically, which is actually stressed by the angels [in Acts 1:11] was not really how he departed. It's a question of what was meant by the rite of the Ascension. In the background to this there is the understanding, the ancient Jewish understanding from the time of the first Temple, [of] the key liturgy: atonement and enthronement. The great High Priest giving himself and then the royal figure being enthroned and God's power being over all.
"These two central feasts, they had already happened in heaven. They were part of the Creator's plan that already happened in heaven, they already existed, if you like, as real facts. And in this secondary reality - which we call the world, earth, creation - they hadn't yet been actually fully enacted. They could only be enacted liturgically by signs in the temple, but the prophets awaited the time when they would actually be lived out. And Jesus's life, death, resurrection and ascension is the living out on earth of that which is done in heaven. That's the whole purpose of it, that's what's meant by the incarnation - the making available in flesh, living out on earth, that which is already done in heaven. And the Ascension is the conclusion of that. It's, if you like, the earthly glimpse of the end of the whole thing. And it's only an earthly glimpse because we have no possible language to describe the end of the heavenly liturgy.
"We see different moments. We see Jesus's teaching. We see him going to his death, we see him living into death so as to detoxify it. We see his resurrection in which the beginning of everything opens up and we suddenly see the whole wonder of creation being made alive for us and us being invited to take part in it. And then, very very quickly, the Ascension, the enthronement in heaven. We use simply a mystical language for that, because how do we talk about the conclusion to the whole thing? How do we talk about the whole thing having been finally enacted, so the full power that God had intended to unleash on earth has now been unleashed and we can now await for the whole of that presence to make itself available to us in the form of the Holy Spirit?
"That's the key distinction that's going on here. Jesus finished something, he achieved something, it's done, it's over. And now that he's achieved it, something massive is going to be made available to us, something huge is going to be unleashed in our midst. The hugeness that has already been achieved in heaven is now going to be made available to us in the form of power, gifts and so forth...
"So that very much more than the vertical lift-off is what's going on here. And just to remind us about that, even at the time in [Acts], Luke is aware of the risk of vertical thinking. So he says, “they were still staring in the sky when suddenly two men in white were standing near them.” So here we have the two seraphs from the Holy place. The Holy place has now gone out into the world. The two seraphs are standing near them, they're standing beside them- not up in heaven, they're standing beside them on earth - saying, “Why are you, men from Galilee, standing here looking into the sky?” That's distinct from heaven. Heaven is, in principle, anywhere and everywhere. The sky is physically upwards. “Jesus, who has being taken up from you into heaven,” - not the same as the sky - “this same Jesus will come back in the same way as you have seen him go.” How did they see him go? They saw him go between two different sorts of seraphs, thieves, one of whom was penitent, on either side of him, as he gave himself for them, promising that that day the penitent thief would be in paradise. So the opening up of the creation, the opening up of the garden would be happening that day. That's how you saw him go, that's how you will see him come back - in the opening up of the new creation by the One handing himself over.
"So, the feast of the Ascension is celebrating completion. The fullness of everything that God had intended for us on earth has finally been achieved for us. We are now going to be enabled to receive this power and take it up ourselves and become its full participants and its 'acters-out'. It's like Jesus is being enthroned in heaven, which means, finally, if you like, that human nature which was always meant in Adam to have been given a heavenly status, has finally been given that heavenly status. It's finally been resolved - the problem of Adam having fallen into futility. Now Adam has been taken to the heavenly place, and with him, that's with Jesus, all of us, potentially starting now, beginning to be able to live out the heavenly vision.
"Hence the importance of us being asked to keep our minds, fix our minds, on the things that are above, allowing our minds to be transfixed by that which is coming upon us, by that which is opening out and coming upon us, rather than that which is worrying us, tempting us to fear, depression, and panic. Rather, allowing ourselves to be filled with the thought of how much is being given to us, and that the Giver is constantly looking for new things to give us in order to fulfil that which has already been achieved.
"So this is, if you like, the something victorious about the Ascension - victorious not only for what Jesus was intending, what God had intended, not only for creation, but for us. This is the beginning of our victory, if you like, and that's why this is a great great feast."
- James Alison, from video "Homily for Ascension Sunday, Year B" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7bisCHfBXY)
[Note that the celebration of the Ascension is traditionally on the Thursday before the seventh Sunday of Easter. For analysis and discussion of the lectionary texts for Easter 7B, see https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-b/easter7b/]
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