“Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky?"
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The Ascension
June 1, 2025
In the first book, Theophilus, I dealt with all that Jesus did and taught until the day he was taken up, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.
He presented himself alive to them by many proofs after he had suffered, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While meeting with them, he enjoined them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for “the promise of the Father about which you have heard me speak; for John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
When they had gathered together they asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” He answered them, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority.
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
When he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight. While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going,
suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.”
R (6) God mounts his throne to shouts of joy: a blare of trumpets for the Lord.
All you peoples, clap your hands, shout to God with cries of gladness,
For the LORD, the Most High, the awesome, is the great king over all the earth.
God mounts his throne amid shouts of joy; the LORD, amid trumpet blasts.
Sing praise to God, sing praise; sing praise to our king, sing praise.
For king of all the earth is God; sing hymns of praise.
God reigns over the nations, God sits upon his holy throne.
Brothers and sisters:
May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,
give you a spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed
to bring you to full knowledge of him.
May he enlighten the eyes of your mind
so that you can see what hope his call holds for you,
what rich glories he has promised the saints will inherit
and how infinitely great is the power that he has exercised for us believers.
This you can tell from the strength of his power at work in Christ,
when he used it to raise him from the dead
and to make him sit at his right hand in heaven
- far above every Sovereignty, Authority, Power, or Domination,
or any other name that can be named
not only in this age but also in the age to come.
He has put all things under his feet and made him,
as the ruler of everything,
the head of the Church which is his body,
the fullness of him who fills the whole creation.
Alleluia Verse Matthew 28:19a, 20b
Go and teach all nations, says the Lord;
I am with you always, until the end of the world.
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer
and rise from the dead on the third day
and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins,
would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
You are witnesses of these things.
And behold I am sending the promise of my Father upon you;
but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”
Then he led them out as far as Bethany, raised his hands, and blessed them.
As he blessed them he parted from them and was taken up to heaven.
They did him homage and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy,
and they were continually in the temple praising God.
Our first reading from Acts is, of course, by the same author as the gospel. Here the metaphor of a cloud is used for the divine presence, and then Luke brings the focus back to the disciples and to us, the readers.
When he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight. While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going, suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.”
What were they thinking? Were they in such a trance that angels had to shake them out of it? Are we in a trance, that we attend the liturgy week after week “looking up to heaven”, yet it makes little impact on our understanding of the cosmic significance of the Christ?
*****
What “cosmic significance”? If we compare the accounts of this event we find some curious anomalies: Only Mark dared to write: “So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.” (Mk 16:19) That's an image that many artists have portrayed, and it may represent what the disciples 'saw'. But why did Luke not include Mark's key phrase, and why did Matthew and John make no mention at all of an ascension into heaven?
Perhaps the gospel writers are simply being faithful to what actually happened, that it remained totally incomprehensible to them until the Spirit had come, anointing them with wisdom and understanding as Jeshua had promised: “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.”
However we do find the phrase in Luke's account of the Pentecost event. On that day Peter and the eleven with him stood up before a vast crowd and proclaimed:
God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said,
“ ‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” ’
“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” (Acts 2:32-36)
There is no hesitancy here, and notice the emphasis on “this Jesus” made "Lord", a word largely reserved for "God". The hardest thing to swallow about the ascension is that one of us, this man, is sharing the throne of the Most High. One of us is exalted to the right hand of God! This man, Jesus, who Peter felt he knew well enough that on occasion he could presume to offer him advice. He must have been stunned by what he heard himself saying on this momentous occasion. It is no wonder that we find it hard even to talk about it, and many simply reject the whole idea out of hand.
*****
So what are we to think of the Ascension? What are we meant to learn from its being a major celebration in the community's calendar? We find some answers in the Epistles: In Ephesians (2nd reading; parallel in Colossians), and scattered through Phillipians, Romans and other letters, there are many references to Christ being elevated to a preeminence above all powers and dominations. This is very imaginative writing, and we should ask what do these images mean? Is this what modern writers refer to as the Cosmic Christ? What does 'Cosmic Christ' mean?
It seems to me that Jeshua's accession to a seat at the right hand of God is not just a confirmation of what he accomplished – our salvation, but it is more about all things in the end being brought to their fulfillment. This will be accomplished when Jeshua is acknowledged as the Christ. His anointing with Godself will be recognised as the prototype for the fulfillment of the whole Cosmos. All things are to be acknowledged, each in their own way, as anointed with the Godself.
May I suggest, at this point, that one who wants to reflect on this mystery should take time out to read the first chapters of those two letters: Ephesians 1-3 and Colossians 1-2, and just let the mystery reveal itself. What follows may not be of interest to everyone.
*****
Modern authors writing about the Cosmic Christ lay heavy focus on the Environmental Movement to illustrate the Christian's obligation to respect and care for our natural habitat. Some even say it is time to move out thinking away from emphasising our salvation and look at the broad dimension which embraces the purpose of the whole Cosmos. The ultimate stage of evolution is that “all things will be filled with the utter fullness of God.”
I would hate to think that we can do no better than these grand phrases that we find throughout the scriptures. It's hard to make them more meaningful, but one idea has come to me.
For what it's worth: The title, the Cosmic Christ, does not mean that Jesus of Nazareth somehow expands to fill the whole cosmos, nor that this man Jesus, this humble man who suffered, died and was buried and, raised from the dead, is elevated to the exalted position of "Lord of the Cosmos", higher than any other rank of being under God.
Rather, it refers to us! We are the Cosmic Christ.
As we constitute the Body of the Christ so it is we who are to be “the fullness of him who fills the whole creation”. The human species is the crowning glory of creation and the high point of evolution. In us the material has reached a level at which the spiritual is experienced by the material body. Intelligent matter now has the role of putting intelligent order into nature. With intelligence comes freedom, so these considerations finally come down to this: nature is given the power to choose its destiny, but that power of choice for the whole cosmos is in our heads and in our hands.
We are the mind and will, the intelligence and freedom, of the Cosmos.
At one level nature is quite capable of keeping its balance without any help from us. In fact we tend to be the ones who upset the balance. But there are ways that we can provide for better outcomes. Darwin's “survival of the most fitting” seems to have worked well for the progress of evolution from simpler forms of life to more complex forms, but the record contains countless examples of waste that seem to be the result of development that could have been managed better. In our present crisis of climate change it seems to be incumbent on us to do what we can to mitigate the impact on plants and animals, whether caused by fire or flood or warming of the oceans – and whether we have caused these things or not. We are appointed stewards, care-takers, of our world.
We know there are countless ways we can help to care for threatened wildlife. Every time we save something from extinction we are contributing to the fullness or perfecting of the cosmos. But it is amongst ourselves that the real challenges lie. Will we ever become reasonable enough to treat each other with respect, with justice, compassion and love? So much of our behaviour is simply irrational!!! Mad! Suicidal, particularly in business, politics and world affairs.
The fullness of him who fills the whole of creation will be achieved when we have reached that level of development in which orderly behaviour is seen in all activity at every level. Then will the “reign” of the Cosmic Christ be realised, in this Jesus of Nazareth - through him, with him and in him – but only through us, with us and in us.
In ancient mythologies there sometimes occurs an event where the gods meet in council to discuss whether something can be done. I imagine the question being raised: whether the human species will ever reach the level required that the Christ would fill out the perfection of the cosmos? The answer of the gods can only be “Yes, it will be done because that is our intention from the beginning, and nothing is impossible to God.”
But we find this hard to believe! In our discouragement, faced with brutal slaughter of people under bombardment from ruthless armies, many see this as wishful thinking, but for those of faith it is the simple truth. “The Lord is powerful enough and more than powerful enough to bring this work to completion in us.” It will happen, but we have work to do!!! Time to stop gazing up at the sky!
In this view, the Ascension turns out to be a most challenging climax to Jeshua's journey through life and death, which is our journey too. It's very hard to sit back with a shrug and say, 'Isn't that interesting!' The tormented world is waiting for us to get some sense, to become rational enough that we don't keep doing stupid things, not just in warfare and common murder but in the way we run the economy, the way we provide a way forward for the oppressed poor, the way we care for the environment, etc. The Lord's Ascension is our call to be the Cosmic Christ!