For some reason, we read from verse 6 of chapter 1. For some reason we don’t hear the opening paragraph of the book, which sets out some important points:

1.  that the author of this book has written another book “about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day he was taken up to heaven” (Acts 1.1)

2.  that the author wrote this book for a man called Theophilus; and that there is another book in the bible also dedicated to Theophilus, which is the Gospel of Luke. The opening words of the Acts of the Apostles are “In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did” (Acts 1.1) So it is generally accepted that the person who wrote Luke’s gospel also wrote the Acts of the Apostles.

3.  that the author is convinced that Jesus was alive in a very real sense after he died: “he presented himself alive by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over the course of forty days” (Acts 1.3) From which we can also conclude that the events that the Acts of the Apostles recounts start some forty days after the resurrection

4.  that the risen Jesus told the his followers to wait in Jerusalem “for the promise of the Father” (Acts 1.4)

And then we get to the start of our reading. They had all come together, the disciples were with their Lord once more, and still they didn’t seem to grasp the full significance of his death and resurrection: “So is it now” they asked, “Is the time right for the kingdom of Israel to be restored.” We are forty days after the resurrection. Jesus and his disciples are together again. He bids them farewell, telling them that they are to take his message into Judea and Samaria and even to the ends of the earth. And then “as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.” (Acts 1.9)

The Ascension. That moment in the story of Jesus, when Jesus (dead, buried and risen) leaves earth for the final time. He bids fond farewell and floats of into the sky, destination Heaven.

To our 21st century ear the image seems implausible: how can someone just be taken up into heaven (even that suggestion presupposes that we still accept that ‘heaven’ is ‘up there’); how can someone be there one moment and not the next; how can someone just be “lifted up”? It doesn’t make sense, it’s not logical, it defies all the laws of physics. It could not have happened – surely!

It is fair to say that there are some real questions about the factual nature of this thing we call the Ascension. Even one of the most respectable books I have on my shelves, says this:

The Ascension (whatever its historical and narrative uncertainty) marks the culmination of the resurrection gospel

… whatever its historical and narrative uncertainty …

This isn’t a quote from deeply militant or radical book. This comes from one of the most rudimentary books given to those who do any theological study.

And we have to allow that uncertainty, for one reason if no other. You will recall that I said that the author of Acts is also the author of the Gospel of Luke. There are only two account of the ascension in the bible: one here in the Acts of the Apostles, and the other in Luke’s gospel. Given that these two books were written by the same person you might assumer that the two accounts of the ascension would be fairly similar – and they are, except in one crucial point:

•   this morning’s account puts the ascension forty days after the resurrection

•   the account in Luke’s gospel has all the following things all happening on the same day: the women go the tomb; the tomb is empty; they told the eleven apostles; the story of the two men walking to a village called Emmaus; how those men recognise Jesus in the breaking of bread; how they travel back to Jerusalem immediately; how they were told that the Lord had appeared to Simon; then Jesus is in the midst of them all and says “Peace be with you”; how Jesus ate a piece of broiled fish; how he led them to Bethany, blessed them and “withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven” (Luke 24.51)

All on the same day, the day of the resurrection, Easter Day.

One author, two accounts, two different days on which this one event is meant to have happened. So there is “historical and narrative uncertainty” about the ascension. It is one of the significant episodes in the bible that supports a non-literalist position: if we can’t take these two stories literally, then there is a strong argument to say we must bring our own reasoning to the whole text.

If then there is historical and narrative uncertainty, what are we to make of the ascension? If we can’t believe it happened, can we believe it has a meaning and a purpose for us? To that, I want to say clearly and resoundingly “YES”. It must have had meaning, otherwise it would not have been written down … twice. The challenge for us to discover the meaning for us.

The author of that article which acknowledges the historical and narrative uncertainty of the ascension, goes on to suggest a number of ways we might give meaning and purpose to the ascension today: it makes Jesus relevant to all aspects of human life, individual and global; it presents a possibility of a share in Jesus’ loving union with his Father; it is the crowning of the purpose of Jesus life and death, the restoration of fellowship between heaven and earth; it is not only the call to witness, but also the promise of transformed life.

The difficulty I have with all those explanations (and others) is that they are all so esoteric. They don’t seem to live in the same world as me. They don’t speak to the things I have to do tomorrow, to the people I’m going to be meeting tomorrow, to the joys and fears that tomorrow will bring. So I’m left looking round for a meaning and a purpose to the ascension that can do that: speak to my tasks, my relationships, my emotions; that will make sense of the real world in which I live and move and have my being.

And I find that in a different scholar’s work, in a different way of looking at the on going event of the relationship between Jesus and his followers. For me, the meaning and purpose of the ascension is all to do with responsibility. For three years Jesus has taken the responsibility of saying to those who hear “Follow me”; he has been the one who has led the way, teaching, healing, making the love of God for the outcast and the rejected known – and known not only to the outcast and rejected, but known also to those who would rather keep the outcast cast out and the rejected at bay. Jesus has been their leader. Jesus has been their mentor. Jesus has been their friend. And Jesus has borne the responsibility.

The ascension is, for me, the ultimate “It’s over to you” moment. No longer can they wait to see what the next destination may be. No longer can they leave the decisions up to someone else. No longer can they hope that Jesus will take them, help them, lead them, for he is no longer there, no longer among them, no longer leading them.
“It’s over to you”, the ascension seems to be saying. And with, no doubt, faltering steps; hesitantly at first, I’m sure; uncertain of the first move, the next move, the best move; gently, but definitely, they began to accept the responsibility of telling others what happened after Jesus rose from the dead, of sharing the message of God’s love so that it spread from that frightened few holed up in Jerusalem, across the neighbouring countryside, and even to Rome.

“It’s over to you”, the ascension seems to be saying.
And still is: “It’s over to us!”