The Ascension

Luke tells of the departure of Jesus twice. At the end of his Gospel, Jesus leads the disciples out as far as Bethany, lifts his hands and blesses them, and while he blesses them he is carried up into heaven. They return to Jerusalem with great joy and are continually in the temple praising God (Luke 24:50–53).

The opening of Acts is fuller. For forty days Jesus had shown himself alive to the apostles and spoken about the kingdom of God (Acts 1:3). He told them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for “the promise of the Father”: within a few days they would be baptised in the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4–5). They asked whether he would now restore the kingdom to Israel. He answered that the times were not theirs to know, and that they would receive power and be his witnesses “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth” (Acts 1:6–8). Then, as they watched, “he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight”. Two men in white told them that this Jesus would come back in the same way as they had seen him go (Acts 1:9–11). They walked back to the city from the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s journey away (Acts 1:12).

The other Gospels do not narrate the scene. Matthew ends in Galilee with the promise “I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20). In John the risen Jesus tells Mary Magdalene, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father” (John 20:17). The longer ending of Mark says in one sentence that he “was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God” (Mark 16:19); on those verses see the Appearances and the Great Commission.

Elsewhere the New Testament speaks less of a departure than of an enthronement. Peter’s speech at Pentecost says that Jesus has been exalted to the right hand of God, and applies to him the psalm “Sit at my right hand” (Acts 2:33–35; Psalm 110:1). The same language recurs in the letters (Ephesians 1:20; Hebrews 1:3).

For Luke the event closes the time of the appearances and opens the time of the church: not many days later comes Pentecost (Acts 1:5; 2:1–4). The creed joins it to the expectation of Christ’s return: he “ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the Right Hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory” (Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed). By the fourth century Christians marked the place on the Mount of Olives. Eusebius says that the mother of the emperor Constantine built a church on the mount of the ascension (Eusebius, Life of Constantine 3.41–43), and the pilgrim Egeria knew a spot there called the Imbomon, “the place whence the Lord ascended into heaven” (Egeria, Itinerary 43.5).