Apophatic Ascension

Imagine how the disciples must first have felt when they heard that Jesus was planning to leave them in order to return to his Father. They had had an incredible roller-coaster three years of ministry together with him which had culminated in the agony of watching him die. They thought that they had lost him and that all their hopes and dreams had been dashed. Then there was the joy of the resurrection; the dawning realisation that Jesus was alive, was still with them and was not lost to them after all.

And then the Ascension. The Jesus that they thought they had regained leaves them. What was that all about? There was so much that they still had to learn? There was so much that they could have done together? Why? What happens at the Ascension is also similar to the words that Jesus spoke to Mary Magdelene when she became the first to recognise him after his resurrection. As she did so, she naturally reached out to embrace him but his words to her were, “Touch me not.” Why?

There is a strand of theology which is called ‘the Negative Way.’ Within this way of thinking about God all images and understandings of God are consistently given up and let go because they are human constructions that can only show part of what God is.

So, all talk of Jesus as shepherd, lamb, son, brother, friend, master, servant, king, lord, saviour, redeemer and so on goes out of the window because God is always more than the images that we construct to understand him. In saying that I was speaking of God as being masculine something which is, again, only a limited human understanding of God. Ultimately, God is neither male nor female but is Spirit and the Negative Way says that in order to encounter God as being beyond our limited imaginations and understandings we need to give up and let go of all our human ways of describing him.

The Ascension and Jesus’ words to Mary seem to say something similar. Jesus seems to be saying to the disciples, “Don’t cling on to me. Let go of me as you know me because, when you do, you will gain a greater experience, less limited experience of me. Don’t cling on to me. Let me go, because then the Spirit will come.”

To let go of what is safe and familiar and secure in order to be open to encounter what is beyond is both scary and exhilarating. But it is what Jesus calls us to and it is the way in which we encounter the Spirit in our lives.

The title of a Madness song, ‘One Step Beyond,’ has been a catchphrase that has developed real spiritual meaning for some of us at St John's Seven Kings over the last few months by challenging us to go further in living out our Christian faith, to go one step beyond where we are now in the way that we live as Christians. The Ascension seems to challenge us to go at least one step beyond where we are now in our understanding of God.

We need to leave the safety, security and familiarity of the past in order to encounter the new thing that God is doing in the present. When our aim is to hold on to and preserve what we had in the past, we put it in mothballs and it becomes a museum piece; something that is looked at but not used. The best way to preserve what was good about the past is to use it as the foundation and basis for going one step beyond. It is only when something is alive, growing, developing and changing that its past can feed its present.

So, the Ascension seems to teach us that nothing is sacred: not buildings, not books, not actions, not people, not even Jesus! We must always move beyond the place, space, people and understanding that we have now because that is how is how the Spirit comes!

Where is Jesus now?
Not here!
Jesus has left the building,
left the earth.
The last we saw of him
was the soles of his feet
as he ascended to heaven.

Where is Jesus now?
No longer God with us,
now God in heaven.
Distant,
removed,
out of our league.

What is he like?
We do not know –
we cannot see him!
What does he say?
We do not know –
we cannot hear him.
What is he to us?
We do not know –
he is not with us.

Where is Jesus now?
Here in body.
Here in what body?
The body of his people.
In the diverse,
differing,
fallible,
forgiven folk
who follow him
forming
his body on earth,
becoming his hands and feet,
his eyes, ears, mouth
on earth.

Where is Jesus now?
Here in Spirit.
Here in what Spirit?
The Spirit of love,
joy, peace
and hope.
The Spirit that
animates his body
into acts of service
and words of love.

Who are we
to be where
Jesus is now?
Only the struggling,
the failing,
the falling.
Only those calling out
for the Spirit’s
empowering.

Where are we
who are where
Jesus is now?
Only a fragment –
the minutest part -
of the glorious whole
that is his body
on earth.

How do we feel
to be where
Jesus is now?
Affirmed and humbled,
gifted and graced,
on top of the world
and
put in our place.

What does it mean
to be where
Jesus is now?
Like children
becoming adult
to grow up into him,
together
becoming him.
Each playing
our part
in the whole
that is Jesus,
Emmanuel,
God with us.

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16 Horsepower - Cinder Alley.