Why Are You Staring Into Heaven?

Evolutionary Perspectives on Resurrection (Part 6)

CHRISTIANITY’S NARRATIVE PROBLEM

When I reflect on the Christian faith, which has been a part of my life from early childhood, I can’t ignore that we have a narrative problem. What I mean by this is that most of the stories we tell—the stories that shape our beliefs, worship, and lives—cause unnecessary problems for how we understand and experience our world. It’s impossible to have a perfectly accurate view of reality, and so we all live with distortions in our perceptions and responses to our environment. But when those distortions become destructive—leading us to think, act, and speak in ways that bring harm to us and others—they need to be addressed. One of the central tasks of healthy spirituality is to enable us to identify these distortions in our relationship with reality and work to correct them as best we can. The problem is that, many Christians encourage a spirituality that accepts our narrative problem without question, rather than seeking to correct it.

The Christian faith is built on the foundation of the life and work of Jesus the Christ. It’s a compelling story, but I struggle with how it is usually framed. For example, today is Ascension Day when we remember how Jesus was ‘taken up to heaven’ at the end of his earthly ministry. Many Christians continue to believe that this was a literal, physical event in which Jesus rose into the sky until he was no longer visible to his disciples. On its own, this isn’t a problem. But when we insist on reading passages like the account of the Ascension literally, we lock the narrative of Christ’s message and mission into ancient ways of knowing that no longer apply. And in so doing, we rob the Gospel of its relevance and meaning for our lives today.

IT’S THE MEANING THAT MATTERS

The old ‘three-tier’ understanding of the world—with heaven in the sky above us, hell beneath our feet, and earth in the middle—was discarded centuries ago. But if we choose to read the Bible literally—which many believers do—it continues to shape our perspectives and behaviour. This leaves us believing that the most important thing about the Ascension is that Jesus literally went up into the sky, and the most important thing about us is that we hope to join him sometime in the future.

But when everything important in our faith is located “up there” then that is where our hearts will be; the lives we live here and now are devalued and dismissed. The Ascension narrative has an abundance of deep and transforming truth to offer us if we will focus on the meaning of the story. But if we obsess about whether the details are factual or not, we miss what it is trying to tell us about Jesus, our world, and ourselves.

I am not trying to make a case that Jesus didn’t ascend physically. I’m simply saying that if he did, we need to explain why and where he went, since we know that heaven is not, in fact, “up there.” And I’m also suggesting that whether he ascended physically or not is beside the point. It’s the meaning that matters.

ASCENDED CHRIST

There are only two accounts of the Ascension and both are penned by the writer of Luke/Acts. The Gospel of Luke ends with Jesus leaving his friends and being ‘taken up to heaven’. It doesn’t specifically refer to him physically rising and the phrase “being taken up to heaven” is open for interpretation. The Acts version is more detailed and explicit, but it also reveals more of the influences that shaped the writing.

After Jesus said these things, as they were watching, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going away and as they were staring toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood next to them. They said, “Galileans, why are you standing here, looking toward heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way that you saw him go into heaven.”
(Acts 1:9-11 CEB)

There are two strong images from the Hebrew Scriptures that likely informed this account. I’ll deal with the second one later, but the first is drawn from Daniel 7:13. This is the same prophecy that Jesus referred to in his apocalyptic discourse before his arrest and execution (see Luke 21:5-36):

As I continued to watch this night vision of mine, I suddenly saw
one like a human being
coming with the heavenly clouds.
He came to the ancient one
and was presented before him.
Rule, glory, and kingship were given to him;
all peoples, nations, and languages will serve him.
His rule is an everlasting one—
it will never pass away!—
his kingship is indestructible.
(Daniel 7:13 CEB)

Daniel’s Messianic vision is linked with Jesus through the term “one like a human being” (literally “son of man”). In the Gospels, Jesus uses this prophecy to reassure his followers that he will fulfil his liberating mission and receive God’s authority, and that they should continue to trust and be aware of God’s reign in the midst of the chaos and turbulence in their world. Now, in Acts, the writer depicts Jesus being taken away by a cloud, as described in Daniel’s prophecy, with the implication that Jesus was now returning to God’s throne room to receive the authority and rulership he deserved. Matthew expresses the same idea in his famous Great Commission:

I’ve received all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go…
(Matthew 28:18-19a)

The authority that Daniel and Matthew speak of is applied to Jesus in the Ascension account in Acts. It’s a way of describing his constant and profound presence in the world and with his disciples. He is unbound from space and time and his nature as the Christ is revealed. This is not a change in Jesus so much as a metaphor to show us who he always was and that the divine—the fulness of the Cosmic Christ—could exist and did exist in a human being.

But also, as the Ascended One, Christ is now the bridge between God and humanity. In the mythology of the Ascension, Jesus carries our humanness into the Godhead facilitating a profound union between God and human beings. And then, in the promise of the Spirit, Jesus reveals that, even as humanity has entered into the divine Being, so the divine will enter into ours, making the union complete.

This image is meant to open our eyes to the truth that has always existed. We were never separate from God and God was always within us. To use the words the two men spoke to the disciples, we are to stop staring up into heaven. Rather, we are to recognise Christ’s presence everywhere and always, and we are to embrace our union with God here and now.