Reflection for Ascension Day - 14th May 2026
At the Eucharist for this feast we will hear that very familiar opening to the Acts of the Apostles:
In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. [Acts 1:1-3]
Jesus goes on to tell them to wait in Jerusalem until they have been baptised with the Holy Spirit and he is then taken up out of their sight in a cloud. What particularly struck me this year was the forty days of speaking to the apostles about the kingdom of God after his resurrection. What did he say?? Forty days of teaching is simply stepped over and we are straight into the ascension. How tantalising is that! The resurrection accounts in the gospels provide some clues as to what he was doing during this time but there actually isn’t very much. I found myself thinking ‘if only the apostles had written it down in a clear and unambiguous form then we wouldn’t have all this arguing about our faith.’
But of course it is my modern, linear historical thinking, along with a rationalistic mindset that is tripping me up. All the gospels are actually post-resurrection reflections on the life of Jesus, not ‘factual’ diaries written as things happened. This is the way the apostles passed on what they had learned whilst they lived and walked with Jesus both before and maybe more particularly after his death and resurrection. They were writing about getting to know a person and living in relationship with him, not conveying a body of ethical teaching or metaphysical philosophy.
I fell to thinking about what Fr John Behr said when he was with us a few years ago1, that before the crucifixion the disciples did not ‘get it’ and they had the honesty to convey that in the way that they passed on the message in the gospels. It was only as they came to know Jesus in a new way after his death and resurrection that they began to understand the nature of the kingdom of heaven. They were then able to tell the gospel stories both as an account of their journeying with Jesus in his earthly life but reflecting also their post-resurrection understanding.
Fr John also spoke of the Cross being the centre of history and how we should see history as circling around this event rather than it being a marker along the way of a linear unfolding. The Old Testament already included prefiguring of what was going to happen and as the gospel accounts took form they drew on the stories of the Old Testament to give shape and meaning to the message of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. We see that particularly in Luke’s account of the disciples’ encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Emmaus, how Jesus expounded the scriptures to them to reveal how the Messiah would need to suffer. Then the moment of recognition came in the breaking of the bread, setting the pattern for all of us who follow. We encounter our risen Lord in opening our hearts to the words of scripture and the breaking of bread together. It is about a personal relationship mediated through scripture and sacrament, not intellectual understanding.
Every year we circle around the events of salvation history, telling and retelling the same stories yet encountering them anew as we allow them to touch and change us. Those crucial forty days of Jesus’ post-resurrection teaching brought the apostles into a new relationship with him and opened their hearts and minds to find fresh meaning in the familiar stories of the people of God. As he withdrew from them in bodily form he set the stage for the coming of the Holy Spirit who would be his presence with each one of them, unlimited by time and space and empowering them to live the life of the kingdom.
That same presence comes to us too and leads us onward into new retelling of the familiar stories as lived out in our own lives. Let us take the opportunity of our pre-Pentecost retreat to listen to what new thing the Holy Spirit is calling us, how we might retell our own story of our evolving relationship with Jesus. He walks with us day by day and we have only to let him touch our hearts through word and sacrament to be led into fulness of life in his kingdom.
Mother Anne - 14th May 2026
1Fr John Behr gave us a three day retreat based on his book ‘Mystery of Christ: Life in Death’