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Ascension Walsingham

Ascension Day

Ascension Walsingham

I walk around the chapels following the Rosary’s mysteries at the Anglican Church in Walsingham and come into the Ascension Chapel. I cannot make out why it is called the Ascension Chapel. There is a painting of Mary…

… And then I look up….

Two feet are protruding out of the ceiling… (image above).

Ascension of JesusI love the images of Jesus’ feet hanging out of the sky. And the questions about where does he go? Where is his body now? How does he cope without oxygen? If it is “up” from the Holy Land, where is it from here?…

Because it is so clearly metaphorical…

So much so that Luke doesn’t even make any effort to get the chronology correct – is it on Easter Day… or 40 days later…?! Or, with John, as Jesus ascends the throne of his cross…?!

We are so used to the metaphor being expressed in one of the dimensions (“up”). But what say, instead of a spatial dimension being the metaphor – what would happen if we used time as the ascension metaphor?

Jesus went before us into the future…

Jesus went ahead of us into our future. Whatever happens now – Jesus, sovereign, is there ahead of us, our friend. All shall be well.

How might we now live knowing that Jesus is ahead of us in our future…? And that, whatever happens, our future is safe in the powerful hands of one who cares for us more than we care for ourselves…

Ascension Day reflection based on the collect/opening prayer.

Today is the Fortieth day of Easter.

In the Southern Hemisphere this is the start of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity which concludes on the Day of Pentecost. Christians are not united on which week to pray for Christian Unity. Northern Hemisphere Christians pray for unity in a different week – in January.

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13 thoughts on “Ascension Day”

  1. Michael Thompson

    Why be stuck with a linear understanding of ascended. Could be up, down, sideway slide, forward, back, filling universe in time and space or infinitesimally small, somewhere, nowhere, beyond all things and in all things, even with his feet sticking out of the ceiling at Walsingham. If returning to the Father ten all bets are off except that he will be with us for all time.

  2. I’ve always been helped by the other image in the story: “a cloud received him out of their sight”. (I’ll resist the urge to list the scriptural parallels.)

    Prayers for unity in Northern January and Southern June? Sounds like an ecumenical Winter. :-/

  3. Gillian Trewinnard

    Indeed, ascended to a plane of existence that is not subject to constraints of time and space. I guess that means we can pray for our dead, and for our ancestors in the faith, because Jesus is now there/then too. Thanks for this wonderful post.

  4. I’ve always found C S Lewis’s description of the Eldil’s appearance on earth in his Perelandra Trilogy an interesting way of thinking about the Ascension – it’s another metaphor of course.
    Each gospel writer is trying to find words to describe an indescribable event. It would be an interesting excercise to think about what metaphors a 21st century writer might choose.

    1. I think you are quite right, Claudia. We need to live inside the metaphors the Bible presents, and then find contemporary metaphors that express that. Christ is Risen! And Ascended!

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