Today is Ascension Day. It doesn’t quite have the ‘box office appeal’ of Christmas or Easter, but it’s an important part of the story of Jesus and his church.

Ascension Day is the 40^th day after Easter and marks the end of the stories of Jesus’ resurrection appearances, and his return to heaven. As the Apostles’ Creed puts it:

he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father…

If we believe that heaven is “up there”, then it’s obvious that if Jesus is going to heaven, he will need to ‘ascend’. But it’s a tricky one for us to visualise if we don’t think of earth, heaven and hell like three levels of a multi‑storey car park. (Or like using the lift in Grace Brothers’ department store: “Heaven? Going up!”)

It was John Lennon who gave us the phrase, “above us, only sky”, which has become the tagline for Liverpool’s airport. And before him, Russian cosmonaut, Yuri Gargarin, the first man in space, is supposed to have said “I looked and I looked but I didn’t see God”. (This quotation might not have come from Gagarin, but may have been attributed to him by the Soviet propaganda machine.)

Most of us probably don’t really think of heaven as being “up there”, so what exactly did happen to Jesus, and what did the disciples actually see? If they had had a video camera, what would they have been able to record? It’s difficult, isn’t it?! But however we try to visualise that event, its meaning is probably easier to grasp. We talk about ‘looking up’ to someone we admire; someone may go ‘up’ in our estimation. And when we talk about God, we use similar language, but even more so: “Glory in the highest heaven”, we sing. So when we talk about Jesus as going ‘up’, what we mean is that he is where he belongs, in the place of honour. The New Testament talks about Jesus as

“the one who also ascended far above all the heavens”.
(Ephesians 4:10)

We honour Jesus as the one who gave up his life for the world and whose sacrifice is vindicated by God:

And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

Another tricky question, for those with a literal turn of mind, is, Where is Jesus’ body now? The answer is “in heaven”. Again that is difficult to visualise! But whatever we make of it, there is something rich and profound about this idea of Jesus’ humanity being in heaven, “at the right hand of the Father”. One of my favourite hymns, Crown Him With Many Crowns – a great hymn to sing at this time of the year – puts it like this:

Crown Him the Lord of love, behold His hands and side,
Those wounds, yet visible above, in beauty glorified.

I find that very encouraging, to think of Jesus’ body, glorified and in heaven, but still carrying the marks of his passion; to think that his wounded humanity is ‘there’ in the highest heaven… And that “he ever lives to intercede for us” (Hebrews 7:25) who live ‘below’ and struggle with our wounded humanity.

The story of Pentecost completes the circle: this Jesus who lives ‘above’ sends his Spirit to us ‘below’, so that we can know his continuing presence, his love and his power. As well as being in heaven, Jesus is here, with us, closer to us than the breath we breathe.

The Spirit makes us the Church: those who worship a Saviour, risen, ascended, glorified, who takes his humanity to the highest place, and whose Spirit dwells in our mortal bodies (Romans 8:11).