![]() That such spiritual physicality can arouse human incredulity and challenge the scientific thinker is precisely the point. There is a kind of levity in the idea of a man rising into the sky. There is a kind of gravity in the idea of a man rising from the dead. It is this second disappearance that gives modern sensibilities some pause, for it is in a way stranger than the first. ![]() It went somewhere and, even now, is somewhere. The body of Christ disappeared from the tomb and then reappeared before disappearing again forty days later. It has a tangible dimension as it deals with a tangible body. The Ascension confirms and completes the Resurrection in a way that goes beyond mere symbolism. It was a physical miracle involving a physical body that illustrated a relationship that is supernatural and eternal: “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote in Dogma and Preaching, “The expression of our belief that in Christ human nature, the humanity in which we all share, has entered into the inner life of God in a new and hitherto unheard-of way. It means that man has found an everlasting place in God.” The whole purpose of the miracle of the Ascension is that it points out the way for all flesh. In other words, the Ascension is as much about the body as it is about the soul. While the Ascension of Christ is a moment of spiritual transcendence that may be difficult to relate or react to, it is also a material mystery. Lewis draws attention to the physical importance of the Resurrection, pointing out that the Ascension, like the Resurrection, required a Body-a point that cannot be dropped. You cannot take away the Ascension without putting something else in its place. But if it were real, then something happened to it after it ceased to appear. If it were a vision then it was the most systematically deceptive and lying vision on record. ![]() And all Christians must explain why God sent or permitted a ‘vision’ or ‘ghost’ whose behaviour seems almost exclusively directed to convincing the disciples that it was not a vision or a ghost but a really corporeal being. And if the Risen Body were not objective, then all of us (Christian or not) must invent some explanation for the disappearance of the corpse. For a phantom can just fade away but an objective entity must go somewhere-something must happen to it. Lewis took up this very question in Miracles:Ĭan we then simply drop the Ascension story? The answer is that we can do so only if we regard the Resurrection appearances as those of a ghost or hallucination. Can we drop this story of Christ soaring through the sky?Ĭ. This is the Faith, after all, not a fairy tale. Can people really take seriously the account of a Man floating into the clouds? Is the Ascension worth the risk of alienating those influenced by a cynical realism? There is something about the Ascension that is inconceivable, even for a miracle-something that is almost too fabulous about the idea and image of Jesus “flying.” For those who stumble over the Ascension, there is often an aspect of mythical fantasy or primitive whimsy involved in accepting such a thing. “And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight…” (Acts 1:9). The Ascension of Jesus Christ, related in the Gospels of Mark and Luke and referred to throughout the New Testament, can be taken as something of an awkward anecdote in the Catholic canon.
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