On the Ascension (and Being Creatures of the Calendar)

It’s become something of a joke that many of us have lost our sense of time through this period. Someone posted on Facebook a few days or was it weeks back, “for those who have lost track, today is Blursday the fortyteenth of Maprilay.”

It’s a reminder of how much we live by the calendars. I have a friend, who every day, posts one word – the day of the week! Whether it’s school semesters; the hockey, baseball, football season; summer holidays; or planting the garden – we are calendar-driven people.

God made us this way. Shortly after Noah and his family emerge from the ark, God reaffirms the creational pattern of “seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night” (Genesis 8:22). 

Beyond Christmas and Easter, those of us in most non-liturgical churches don’t pay much attention to the church calendar. Our brothers and sisters in those more liturgical church traditions are far more alert to the changing seasons of the Christian calendar, and they often find their walk with the Lord enriched as a result of reflecting on where we are now in the year.

All of this is to say that tomorrow (Thursday, 21 May) is Ascension Day. 

I wonder if you’ve ever marked it before? I know I haven’t. But when I was teaching Acts in Ethiopia, earlier this year, it struck me, how significant this was in the early church. We tend to bundle Jesus’ ascension with his resurrection as a single event, but they were separated by nearly six weeks, and Ascension Day is traditionally celebrated on the 40th day after Easter Sunday. (Yes, it really is 40 days since Easter!)

The early disciples knew this, because they lived through those days. So, Peter on the Day of Pentecost is clear that the climax of what God has done in Jesus is not the resurrection, but Jesus being “exalted to the right hand of God” (Acts 2:33), fulfilling the hopes expressed in Psalm 110 of the Messiah taking his seat at the right hand of the Lord.

If the resurrection affirms that Jesus lives forever, the ascension confirms that he reigns forever. 
Jesus’ ascension opens up a new era in God’s dealings with his people and with the world:

• the era of the giving of the Spirit, 
• the era of Jesus’ ministry as our heavenly High Priest, 
• the era of God’s mission to all nations, 
• the era of hope for what will be when Jesus returns just as he left.

All that is worth marking – and pondering – not least during these times in which we live.

Let me come back to the calendar. Maybe the church calendar, at its best, changes the way we experience time and understand reality. 

It’s all too easy for me to map my year onto the calendar of the dominant cultural reality, whether that be sports, holidays, or education – important though they are. But part of "numbering our days" in order to "gain a heart of wisdom" (Psalm 90:12) is to live according to an ultimate reality – one that marks time with the coming of Christ as the fulfilment of Israel’s hopes and his coming again at the renewal of all things.