The Rev. Brandon C. Ashcraft
Easter 7, Year C (John 17:20-26)
June 1, 2025
Trinity Church in the City of Boston
Ascensiontide: The Space In-Between
People of Trinity Church, happy anniversary! Today marks one year since we began our shared ministry. Now, I should clarify that this one-year milestone is not according to the Gregorian calendar, but to the liturgical calendar. I am an unapologetic church nerd, which means that when marking time, I often default to the Church calendar over its secular counterpart. In the Calendar on page 32 of the Prayer Book, the full name ascribed to this day is a bit of a mouthful: The Seventh Sunday of Easter: the Sunday after Ascension Day. And far more important than its significance for my life at Trinity, today marks a pivotal moment of transition in the story of Jesus and the Church.
In the biblical narrative, today we find ourselves in between two watershed events, in what you might call a “liminal space.” From the Latin word for “threshold, the concept of a “liminal space” comes from the well of Celtic spirituality. “Liminal spaces” exist on the border between what was and what will be. When we inhabit a liminal space, we’re on the precipice of something new, but we’re not quite there yet. Liminal spaces are marked by transition and transformation; absence and anticipation. The Catholic mystic Richard Rohr suggests that all spiritual transformation occurs in liminal spaces, where “the old world is able to fall apart, and a bigger world is revealed.”1 Rirchard Rohr, “Liminal Space,” Daily Meditations, March 19, 2024, https://cac.org/daily-meditations/liminal-space/.
If we want to know what gives this day its liminal character, we should turn our gaze upward, to the Eastertide windows in the south transept, starting with the middle scene – which, for those who cannot see it now, is a glorious stained-glass depiction of the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ.2 Cynthia Staples, “From the Historian: Inheritance and the History behind ‘The Ascension’ Window – Trinity Church,” From the historian, September 12, 2024, https://trinitychurchboston.org/from-the-historian-inheritance-and-the-history-behind-the-ascension-window/. The feast of the Ascension was celebrated throughout the Church universal this past Thursday, and while that might seem like a random day for a major feast, rest assured, there’s a reason.
In the weeks following his resurrection, the Risen Jesus makes several appearances to his disciples. He encounters Mary Magdalene on Easter morning in the garden. That same evening, he bids peace to the disciples huddled in the Upper Room, then returns a week later to so-called Doubting Thomas. He walks alongside the two despondent disciples on the road to Emmaus. The Risen Jesus even shares a beach breakfast on the Sea of Galilee with his disciples. And then, the scriptures tell us, the resurrected Jesus ascends into heaven, bidding his disciples farewell on the fortieth day after his resurrection, which falls – you guessed it – on a Thursday.3 Acts 1:3. Thankfully, since most of us don’t make it to church on Thursday, there are nods to the Ascension throughout today’s liturgy, namely in the hymns, the anthems, and our prayers.
In my experience, we often struggle to make sense of the Ascension, and the artistic renderings of this event aren’t always helpful. When I was young, my grandparents, who lived in the Ozark Mountains, took me to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, to see the “Great Passion Play,” a dramatic re-enactment of the last week of Jesus’ life in a 4,000-seat outdoor amphitheater. Thirty-something years later, the only part of that play I still remember is the final scene, when Jesus was lifted high above the stage in an artificial cloud, to the sound of dramatic music!
Images of cloud-floating Jesus can feel to us like a relic of an antiquated cosmology. In the ancient thought world of our Christian forebearers, heaven was “up,” and hell was “down.” This worldview is reflected in the Apostles’ Creed, where Jesus “descends” to the dead and “ascends” into heaven. For the scientific mind, the Ascension of Jesus raises more than a few questions. But if we fixate on these questions, I fear we miss the deeper and more profound meaning of this decisive event in the Easter story.
The theology of the Ascension is less about Jesus’ mode or direction of travel, and more about his destination, which is the “right hand,” of God the Creator. And Jesus’ destination at the right hand of God is less about a precise physical location and more about the intimate communion between them. In the Incarnation, the story we tell at Christmas, God comes close to us by taking on our human nature in Jesus. In the Ascension, Jesus returns to God the Father, taking our human nature with him, into the very life of the Triune God. In his Ascension, Jesus takes the entirety of our human existence and experience into the very heart of God, so that we can enjoy that same communion – so that where he is, we may be also.4 John 17:24. And that is very Good News!
Returning to the story depicted in that stained glass window: if we put ourselves in those disciples’ shoes, we’ll discover there is more the Ascension has to offer us. In their grief and confusion over Jesus’ departure, the disciples were left clinging to one thing: Jesus’ promise to send them the Holy Spirit, an event we’ll celebrate next Sunday. As they gazed up toward heaven, as their Lord and Savior left them, this ragtag band of Galilean fishermen could not see how their story would end. In these ten days between Ascension and Pentecost – what we call “Ascensiontide” – the disciples found themselves living between a promise and its fulfillment. In that liminal space between what was and what would be, they had a choice. They could give themselves over to despair or they could trust Jesus’ promise. And in the Ascensiontide of our lives, we have the same choice.
Our entire earthly pilgrimage is one long Ascensiontide. Our entire journey of faith is lived in the space in between, in anticipation of God’s promises. Amid the changes and chances of this world, we, like the disciples, are called to put one foot in front of the other in faith, striving to trust our Lord’s promises. His promise to be with us to the end of the age. His promise to return and restore creation and make all things new. His promise to not leave us comfortless, but to pour his Spirit upon us.
In his Ascension, the One who ministered on earth as a teacher, healer, and prophet takes on a new role. From his exalted position at the Father’s right hand, Jesus assumes the role of our Mediator and Advocate. Our never-failing intercessor. Which is to say, the ascended Jesus prays for us. And if we want to know what it looks like when Jesus prays for us, we get a glimpse in today’s Gospel. Every year on this Ascensiontide Sunday, we hear a passage from the seventeenth chapter of John, which is known as the “High Priestly Prayer.” And while its setting is Maundy Thursday, the night before Jesus dies, this “High Priestly Prayer” foreshadows Jesus’ role on the other side of death and resurrection, once he is crowned in glory in heaven.
As Jesus stands in this liminal space between life and death, he “looks up to heaven” and prays. He prays first for himself, then for his disciples, and finally, in the passage we just heard, he prays for all who will come to believe in him. In other words, my friends, Jesus prays for us. Jesus prays that we may be one, just as he and the Father are one. That we may one day be with him to behold the glory of our Creator, unveiled. I find tremendous comfort in the image of a Jesus who prays. A Jesus who prays for us from his heavenly throne at the Father’s right hand. A Jesus who never fails to make intercession for us.
On this Ascensiontide Sunday, we are invited to follow our apostolic ancestors, and to put our trust in a God who keeps his promises. To rejoice that our Lord and Savior has taken our humanity into the realm of the divine. So that no matter the twists and turns of our earthly pilgrimage, we can have confidence in our final destination. In the end, I am not entirely sure that I can “make sense” of the Ascension, but I chose to trust that the Ascension somehow makes sense of us.5 I first encountered the notion of the Ascension as an event that “makes sense of us” in a reflection by the Rt. Rev. Craig Loya, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota.