How to Increase Biblical Literacy without Creating Biblical Literalists — Part Three

“The Ascension of Jesus”

by Steve Kindle

The theme of these posts is contained in the series title. There is an adverse outcome possible when we urge people to begin reading their Bibles. It is the tendency to interpret literally. Sometimes it is appropriate; often it is not. Learning to distinguish when it is and when it is not appropriate is essential. In Part Two, we used the example of creation in six days from Genesis 1. In this post, we will look at what is known as the ascension of Jesus into heaven, most prominently seen in Luke. However, even in Luke/Acts, there are two recitations of the event that cannot be reconciled. Was it on resurrection Sunday (Luke) or 40 days later (Acts), both of which were from the same author?

The first indication that Jesus did not ascend literally into heaven comes from the other Gospels that not only don’t have an ascension scene, but argue against it. Matthew has Jesus tell the disciples, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” With this, his gospel ends. Nothing more need be stated; Jesus is everpresent. Mark ends with Jesus ordering the disciples to meet him in Galilee; the gospel ends with no ascension. For John, who wrote that many things could have been said but he left them unsaid, omitted the ascension. Of the many important things chosen for his gospel, John didn’t mention it. We are left with Jesus serving breakfast to his disciples. The end.

There is an even more important reason for not taking the ascension literally. It is, simply put, an impossibility. This story is created out of the Ancient Near Eastern understanding of the cosmos as illustrated below.

This is how the cosmos is portrayed in Genesis 1

Here are just a few of the details. The distance from the surface of the (flat) earth to the abode of God, heaven above, was thought to be not far above the mountain tops. Recall that the people of Babel thought they could build a tower that would take them to heaven. Heaven, or where God lived and “looked down upon the earth,” was directly above the earth. We pay homage to this with expressions like, “The man upstairs,” and our prayers “go up to heaven.” This depiction of the earth was operative well beyond the time of the New Testament.

One of the questions each gospel writer had to address was what to do with a resurrected Jesus who would not die again. He can’t be left on earth in perpetuity. We would literally have to do with a 2000-year-old man! Luke solved this by having Jesus actually leave the earth and vertically rise up to heaven. Now, this scenario is only possible if the cosmos was actually constructed as represented in the illustration above. We know the cosmos is quite different from this. In fact, if Jesus left the earth and traveled at the speed of light, with the universe constantly expanding and billions of light-years to traverse, Jesus would still be traveling.

To say that this story is unbelievable and leave it at that is to do Luke an injustice. He used a creative way to remove Jesus from the earth, and his only available option was the cosmology of his day. If we look beyond its literalness, we glimpse a greater truth. Jesus said in John 1:51, And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. He said this to Nathanael. This was not a vision exclusively for him, but for all who understand that truth is often much more available when a literal container isn’t big enough to hold it.

Taking all the gospels together, Jesus, simultaneously, is now with God and his people. This is celebrated every time in the eucharist. Jesus becomes Jacob’s ladder, bridging the gap between Heaven and Earth.