Ascension: Forces of Attraction

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Acts 1:1-11; Luke 24:44-end

Some years ago, before children stole my life, I was at a gym on a running machine.  The machine was quite unfortunately lined up, though, and I was facing the right half of my reflection where the mirrors abruptly stopped. I have a slightly obsessive need for order and hate things not to be lined up. This was nothing to do with vanity. Anyway as I ran I found myself unconsciously leaning to the right in order to catch my full reflection. This in itself probably looked a little odd, but as I continued my right foot hit the side of the machine off the treadmill sending me into a double twisting backwards pike, landing in a painful shambolic mess ten metres behind the machine.  I have since developed a deep mistrust of running machines.

Now, I was running in a park more recently and had another awkward moment, running straight at someone, both of us side stepping towards each other in both directions. Like dancers. We avoided crashing into one another but it was pretty close. Afterwards though I had a moment of self doubt, questioning my motives. The person I was running towards was very attractive. Had I deliberately stepped towards them. Read their body language and subconsciously drifted into their way.

When we talk about beauty and desire, we very often use the language of attraction. We speak of being drawn to someone. Pretty people are said to ‘turn heads’. In clubs in the 90s people went ‘on the pull’; ‘falling in love’ suggests some involuntary movement. When we see something beautiful, when we feel attracted, we often find ourselves drawn in, pulled towards the object of our affection, caught up in a gravitational orbit of our delight. 

The story of Jesus, which ends today; the story from the Incarnation to the Ascension, is the story of the desire of God.God so loved the world that he sent his only Son. The Son that revealed God to be love, love for the world. This love, this desire drew God into creation in the Incarnation. God was pulled into the centre of human history. The Ascension is the story of love returning, love reciprocated. Jesus, in his humanity loves God, and so is drawn back up to God, and offers in himself on our behalf the proper love of creation back to God. It’s the consummation of the marriage of heaven and earth.

There’s a prayer traditionally said during the preparation of the Eucharist, while the priest mixes water with the wine. “By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.” This captures the essence of the Ascension. God comes full circle. On Christmas morning we sing “he came down from earth to heaven”, while the anthem you want to hear on Ascension is Finzi’s great “God is gone up with a triumphant shout”. The point is not so much that God did a thirty year dip, a cosmic road-trip, causing the Christmas shepherds to scatter in terror and the disciples at the Ascension to stare bewildered into space – like Superman falling from the heavens and rising in Lycra – it’s more like the hand of God plunging into creation and lifting the whole thing up into his bosom.

Having said that the mythological trope of resurrection and ascension has set itself at the absolute heart of our culture; It’s the industry standard form for all superhero movies. Consider any Batman movie. Is there not always a moment when Batman is believed to be dead but makes a seemingly impossible come back, before disappearing again - usually to be found silhouetted on a roof top with the bat symbol projected on to the night sky.  ‘Men of Gotham, why do you stand looking up towards heaven? This batman, who has been taken from you into the sky, will come in the same way as you saw him go.’ Christopher Nolan’s superb batman, in The Dark Night Rises, gets dumped down a well into a dark pit, a good Hebraic metaphor for Hell. Eventually he escapes and saves everyone, before, at the end, heroically ascending in his aircraft ‘the Bat’ to haul away a bomb that detonates over the bay. 

Now you might be forgiven for thinking – well it’s all just mythology isn’t it. Obi-wan Kenobe is quite a bit like Jesus; only despite claiming to be more powerful than you can possibly imagine after being strucken down he doesn’t really seem to achieve very much.  Despite the 2000 census there’s still no jedi church; and Gandalf has his moments of resurrection and ascension: ‘Darkness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time...  The stars wheeled overhead, and every day was as long as a life age of the earth... But it was not the end. I felt life in me again. I've been sent back until my task is done.’

But isn’t this just stories? A variation of Elijah ascending in his fiery chariot, or some crypto-Egyptian or Babylonian myth.  In the 60s there was a short-lived movement that attempted to demythologise Christianity, expurgating all the more far-fetched elements. I can imagine that the picture of Christ ascending into the clouds would quickly have been rationalised to a more straight-forward reading that the resurrection appearances ceased as the time of Pentecost approached. There may be some milage in this, but I’m reminded of Sebastian Flyte in Brideshead Revisited. Charles asks him after mass about all that catholic nonsense to which he replies “Is it nonsense? I wish it were. It sometimes sounds terribly sensible to me.” Then Charles asks about Christmas and the star and the kings, the ox and the ass. Sebastian replies, “Oh yes. I believe that. It’s a lovely idea.”  Undeterred Charles says, “But you can’t believe things because they’re a lovely idea.” but Sebastian replies, “But I do. That’s how I believe.”

The Ascension is certainly a figure by which we understand that transition the disciples made from the experience of the resurrection appearances to the experience of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The story, though, has more depth, not least because of its prevalence in myths, legends and fiction ever since; and because actually it’s by stories and anecdotes, not abstraction, that we make sense of the world. More importantly, historically, is the theological significance of the image of Christ descending and ascending, the tying together of heaven and earth, symbolised by the mixing of the earthly water and the heavenly wine.  Born a hundred years after Christ’s death Clement of Alexandria interpreted this saying:  ‘[T]he Word of God became man, that thou mayest learn from man how man may become God.’ Athanasius, who we can thank for the creed, wrote more concisely: ‘For He was made man that we might be made God.’ It may seem very grand to say that we might come to be divine, but really it’s more to say that learning who God is in Jesus, we might become more like him, and when we finally approach eternity we might share in the fullness of that divine vision. 

More often than not, for us, it’s the things of this world that gain our attention, that attract us, that pull us into their sway. Such things will most likely cause us to topple and fall in our pride and vanity.  Every now and then, though, we will glimpse something of beauty, experience genuine heroic self-giving love for another human being, discover the divine in worship, beauty or charity, and be drawn a little closer to follow Jesus in that movement of ascension.  Our ascension remains as yet incomplete but it is prefigured with Christ lifting up all creation to the Father. Through love He has shown us the way.  By love we will follow Him. Amen.