Skip to main content

Ascending through the clouds

Acts 1.6-14 (https://www.biblegateway.com NRSVA)
Jesus ascends to God on the Cross in John’s Gospel, but he ascends through a cloud in Luke. And he isn’t the first person to do this in the Bible. 
Enoch also has a mysterious ending. The New Revised Standard Version says that ‘he was no more, because God took him,’ (Gen 5.24) which could sound like a circumlocution for ‘he died’. But the Greek Old Testament, which Luke would have been using, says ‘he was not found, because God transferred him,’ implying a more mysterious promotion to glory.
And the Prophet Elijah has an ending that is explicitly like the ascension of Jesus. ‘2 Kings 2.11 says that ‘Elijah ascended in a whirlwind into heaven,’ and it’s even possible that he was seated ‘in a chariot of fire’ drawn by ‘horses of fire’. If anything, Jesus’ ascension is far less spectacular, as befits his more understated style.
Luke has a very clear idea that history divides neatly into three stages. First, there is the period before Jesus; then the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus himself, which is all one episode in salvation history as far as Luke is concerned; and finally the age of the Holy Spirit, which began at Pentecost and will continue until Jesus comes back in the same way that his disciples saw him go, (Acts 1.11). For Luke, then, the Holy Spirit is not the Spirit of Jesus, as it sometimes seems to be in John’s Gospel, although - of course - the God of the Old Testament, the God revealed in Jesus and the God who is with us in the Spirit are all one and the same God, make known to us in three distinct ‘persons’.
Again, there is another person in the Bible whose return prefigures Jesus’ second coming. In Daniel 7.13 the writer sees ‘one like a son of man coming with the clouds’ to whom was given dominion and glory and kingship.’ Almost certainly the writer means, ‘one like a human being’ but Jesus adopted this mysterious title, ‘one like a son of man’, to describe himself. 
For John, Jesus’ divine glory was revealed as he hung and suffered on the cross, but for Luke it will become most apparent as he’s lifted up not on a cross but through the clouds, from whence he will return to claim dominion over the whole earth.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

I don't believe in an interventionist God

Matthew 28.1-10, 1 Corinthians 15.1-11 I like Nick Cave’s song because of its audacious first line: ‘I don’t believe in an interventionist God’. What an unlikely way to begin a love song! He once explained that he wrote the song while sitting at the back of an Anglican church where he had gone with his wife Susie, who presumably does believe in an interventionist God - at least that’s what the song says. Actually Cave has always been very interested in religion. Sometimes he calls himself a Christian, sometimes he doesn’t, depending on how the mood takes him. He once said, ‘I believe in God in spite of religion, not because of it.’ But his lyrics often include religious themes and he has also said that any true love song is a song for God. So maybe it’s no coincidence that he began this song in such an unlikely way, although he says the inspiration came to him during the sermon. The vicar was droning on about something when the first line of the song just popped into his

Giotto’s Nativity and Adoration of the Shepherds

John 1.10-18 In the week before Christmas the BBC broadcast a modern version of The Nativity which attempted to retell the story with as much psychological realism as possible. So, for instance, viewers saw how Mary, and Joseph especially, struggled with their feelings. But telling the story of Jesus with psychological realism is not a new idea. It has a long tradition going back seven hundred years to the time of the Italian artist Giotto di Bondone. This nativity scene was painted in a church in Padua in about 1305. Much imitated it is one of the first attempts at psychological realism in Christian art. And what a wonderful first attempt it is - a work of genius, in fact! Whereas previously Mary and the Baby Jesus had been depicted facing outwards, or looking at their visitors, with beatific expressions fixed on their faces, Giotto dares to show them staring intently into one another’s eyes, bonding like any mother and newborn baby. Joseph, in contrast, is not looking on with quiet a

Meeting Jesus on Zoom

‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’ (John 20.19-31 ( https://www.biblegateway.com NRSVA) This is my second reflection about today’s Gospel reading but I wanted to write something about meeting Jesus on Zoom. Zoom’s been very useful during the lockdown, but it’s also got a bad press. Various mischief makers have gatecrashed meetings on Zoom, either to eavesdrop or make inappropriate comments. That’s why worshippers needed permission to join our on-line service this week. If they managed to press all the right buttons, and entered all the right codes, they should've found themselves looking at a screen not unlike the cartoon picture below of the eleven apostles trying to meet on Zoom with the risen Jesus. Anyone who couldn't see the service on the screen would've been in good company. In the cartoon Jesus has done something wrong. Either he hasn’t enabled Zoom to t