Thursday, May 21, 2009

Today is...

...well, it's still Easter. In fact, it's the 40th day of Easter, which means it is also the Ascension of Our Lord.

A lot of congregations don't celebrate the Ascension all that much, partly because it always falls on a Thursday, and who has church on Thursday? (Well, my seminary did, but that was on purpose, because no one had to be at church anywhere else on that day.) Some communities will choose to celebrate the ascension on the next Sunday (i.e. this coming Sunday), but it's not all that common, at least not in most Lutheran circles that I'm aware of. There isn't even an extra page for it in my "Pastor's Desk Diary" from Thrivent, although a search of elca.org reveals 64 congregations named "Ascension". There's even an island named after it.

So what is with this weird-seeming festival? Why don't we celebrate it more often? Or...why do we celebrate it at all? Isn't it a little hard to take seriously the image of Jesus literally rising up into the sky--like he's, what, up there in orbit somewhere? Or maybe on the other side of the moon? Our cosmology has changed a bit since the New Testament ascension accounts were written.

And yet. Without the ascension, the event that started with the crucifixion and the resurrection isn't complete. The Apostles' Creed still includes the line, "he ascended into heaven". And that's important, so important that we'll be celebrating it this Sunday. Why? Come and see!
~Pastor Sarah

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