Well, today on the Christian church calendar, we are celebrating what’s known as Ascension Sunday, celebrating the Ascension of Jesus into heaven.
Next Sunday is Pentecost Sunday, which signifies the official end of the Season of Easter.
Our Scripture readings for today are actually the readings from this past Thursday’s lectionary, for Ascension Day is always celebrated 40 days after Easter Sunday, so it always falls on a Thursday.
Lent is the 40 days before Easter, and the Ascension is 40 days after Easter. So, why the number 40?
Well, we hear “40” a lot in the Bible, don’t we?
For example, the Israelites wandered 40 years in the wilderness; Moses spent 40 days on top of Mount Sinai receiving the 10 Commandments; Jonah was in Ninevah for 40 days; in the story of Noah, it rained for 40 days/40 nights. And Jesus spent 40 days/40 nights in the desert before he began his ministry of teaching and healing.
This repetition of the number 40 in the Bible is not by accident…not by coincidence. It was done on purpose. In the Jewish tradition, numbers have a tremendous spiritual significance.
The Biblical writers were not using this number literally, but symbolically. And, symbolically, the number 40 represents a time of spiritual completion. It’s not a literal number, but a symbolic number.
It symbolizes the time it takes for the workings of the Spirit to be made manifest. It’s the time it takes for new growth, new life to appear.
Some have said that the Scripture writers chose the number “40,” because pregnancy is 40 weeks long. It’s the time it takes for “new life” to be birthed.
Now, if you’ve been with us during this Easter season, you know that we’ve been focusing on Jesus’s appearances to his disciples after his death.
He’s been giving them his final words – his final teachings – to them before he ascends into heaven.
And, as we just heard in today’s gospel story about the Ascension, it said Jesus opened their minds to understand the scripture.
Before the apostles can be filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Jesus needs to open their minds to understanding the scripture…because they still didn’t get it.
Now think about it: if Scripture is literal, then it would have been easily understood by the apostles, no?
I mean, if the stories of Adam and Eve, and Noah’s Ark, and Jonah & the Whale are all literal stories — stories that children can understand — then why didn’t the apostles understand them? Why would Jesus need to open their minds about them?
Well, remember, the ancient people told stories symbolically, not literally, and so Jesus, before he ascends into heaven, is trying to open the apostles’ minds so that they could understand these stories spiritually, so that could become filled with the Spirit.
And, after Jesus “opens their minds” and they finally “get it,” Jesus lifts his hands to bless them, and as he is blessing them, he is carried up into heaven.
There are many great works of art depicting this ascension. In many of them, we see Jesus being lifted up into the clouds, as the apostles look up in astonishment.
So, did it really happen that way? Did Jesus really defy the law of gravity? Did the apostles really see him bodily rise and disappear into the clouds?
Well, the late Bishop John Shelby Spong – one of the leading theologians and biblical scholar of our times – once asked, somewhat sarcastically, “Do you suppose Jesus went up past the moon, and then perhaps, turned left at Mars?”
And, Father Richard Rohr, tells us we should not believe some Rocket Ship” Jesus – that this isn’t some “beam me up Scotty” moment.
It’s difficult for us as modern people today to believe in some supernatural physical ascension given what we now know about the workings of our physical universe.
That said, maybe the physical ascension of Jesus up into the clouds really did happen — for, certainly, all things are possible with God — but remember – my job, like Jesus’s here – is to get you to “open your mind” to Scripture, so that you can be filled with the Spirit…with new ways of thinking and seeing and being.
So, let’s try to “open our minds” to understand the Ascension story spiritually or symbolically.
After the discovering the empty tomb, the apostles then felt the presence of Jesus in a very real way for “40 days,” which – remember – is a symbolic period of time.
And, during that time of “pregnancy,” if you will, the Spirit was being made manifest in the apostles. And, once they finally “got it,” Jesus’s work was complete.
The Spirit – the “Christ” – was now in the apostles, so it was time for Jesus to ascend, to return back home to God.
For, as Jesus says in John’s Gospel, “Unless I go away, the Spirit cannot come to you.” So, Jesus has to ascend, so that the Spirit can be born in them and in us.
Now, when we say that Jesus “ascended into heaven,” remember, heaven is not a physical place up in the clouds. It is not a separate kingdom somewhere way up in the sky. Jesus never said it was.
Jesus said, “The Kingdom of Heaven” is within you. It’s is at hand. It is here and now.
God’s dwelling place is not “up there” or “out there.” It is within us. That’s where Jesus ascended…back into God’s dwelling place.
And, that is the purpose of the spiritual journey for us: to return that Kingdom within us, not in the next life, but in this one, each and every day.
In the silence of prayer, we make that journey home. We remember the Truth of our being. We recognize our Oneness with God.
And, so, this week, my friends — this week leading up to Pentecost — I would like to invite you to find time each and every day to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven within you, so that you may experience more fully the Spirit of the Living God that is always with you and within you.
May it be so. Amen.