This is the bit of the story that my faith could do without if you want to take this historically. It's Jesus' exit strategy but it just seems too rediculous. How high up did Jesus go to get to heaven? Past Jupiter and Saturn and then the whole Milky Way and then past Andromeda etc? So I go with understanding it as vision: a way of getting us to grips with the fact Jesus is not here any more, but nothing has changed.
'Why are you looking to the skies?' ask the angels. It's as if the whole story is a means of pointing us back to earth to get on with getting on with things. Jesus hated people wandering with their heads in the clouds. He much preferred them healing and rebuilding relationships and doing justice. So get on with it. Stop lingering in the things that have been, harking after those things that have now gone. Just pull yourself together and step out into the world from where you are and get your hands mucky with kingdom building.
But behind this truth is an worrying debate in my head about ascension. How Jesus moved from resurrection to ascension I don't know. If ascension doesn't sit comfortably in your head then where did Jesus go? Once you are resurrected what happens to you? Did Jesus just appear less and less, seemingly less and less interested in, and less and less of this world? What's going on with the resurrected Jesus and indeed resurrection? Was resurrection just a vision that turned a group of followers into a movement based on hope? well, clearly! But more than that...?
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