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Good morning. Today is Ascension Day, marking the occasion some 40 days after Easter, when Jesus bids farewell to his disciples, blesses them, and then disappears from their sight into the clouds. It’s an important religious festival, but for some Christians today also a challenging one, as the picture of Jesus being raised heavenward into the clouds seems to presume the pattern of a three-decker universe (with heaven above and hell below) that runs counter to much contemporary understanding of the world. It’s one thing to see and admire in renaissance paintings by Raphael; but to affirm it as an article of faith perhaps requires some further explanation.

The irony is that the story told in the Acts of the Apostles has a very down to earth focus. The whole point of Jesus being raised up to be with God in heaven is to remind his followers of their calling to live as his disciples down here on earth, indeed to live as if they were his ‘risen’ body in the world. That’s the point of the famous prayer of St Teresa of Avila which speaks of our calling to be Christ’s hands, his feet and his heart of compassion for the world.  And in any case, perhaps it’s no bad thing to have a vision of heaven to inspire us. It was Oscar Wilde who famously reminded us that ‘We are all in the gutter, but some of us are gazing at the stars.’ The account of Jesus’ ascension suggests that there is someone who has gone there before us – and that perhaps we need a vision of heaven in order to make us more human here on earth.

Heavenly Father,

In the story of Jesus we catch a glimpse of how to live the life of heaven on earth; may your divine vision so inspire us that we learn to become more fully human in our relationships with each other. For Christ’s sake, Amen.