Ascension Day 2018

Daniel 7:9-14 and Acts 1:1-11 and Luke 24:44-53

There was a time when our family was carried off into exile. It was a devastating experience. By the rivers of Babylon, we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion (Psalms, 137). How, we asked, could we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?

At just the right time, Daniel gave us a vision, to keep hope alive. A vision of a courtroom being set up on the earth, and the Ancient One—the Lord God, King of the universe—coming to sit in judgement over the pagan nations. Then, as the trial unfolds, one like a human being comes from where they have been hidden in heaven, and is presented before the Ancient One, who confers upon him rule over the nations.

This language is a code, in which the one like a human being represents the people of Israel, who live under the rule of the pagan nations—but who are to view themselves as hidden by God in the heavens, waiting, until he passes judgement on those nations and restores his people to the glory they had lost. That is how we were to view ourselves.

But why speak in code? Why not declare openly that God would soon overturn the fortunes of the nations, stripping Babylon of her empire and restoring the throne of David? Well, for a start, Daniel—to whom this vision is attributed—served as a very high-ranking government official within the Babylonian empire. More, he did so in obedience to God’s instruction, given through the prophet Jeremiah, that his people in exile should settle and establish themselves and seek God’s blessing on their hosts. He wasn’t there as a traitor to his people, or as a double-agent, but to be a blessing.

What we needed, you see, was a form of language, a way of speaking, that held in tension our desire that God would make all things right, and our genuine love for the people among whom we lived. This was not like when we were slaves in Egypt, and God sent Moses and Aaron to confront Pharaoh, who hardened his heart; or even like the time God sent Jonah to Nineveh, to confront the Assyrians with imminent disaster, when they repented and changed their mind and their actions, and so God repented and changed his mind and intended actions. No, traumatic though being taken into exile was, the lived-experience of our family during those seventy years was, for the most part—though with occasional rough patches—that of being highly honoured.

Indeed, when Daniel’s vision came to pass, in the events of the fall of the Babylonian empire to the Persian empire, and the opportunity came about to return home to Jerusalem, many of us chose not to go.

By the time of Jesus, the rebuilt temple in Jerusalem was one of the wonders of the world. But Jerusalem and the whole Land had been taken first by the (Egyptian-based) Greeks, and then by the other (Syrian-based) Greeks, and then by the Romans. A new set of pagan nations. Recalling Daniel’s vision, Jesus declared that although the chief priests and the whole council rejected him, they would “see the Son of Man [him, and his followers] [first] seated at the right hand of Power and [then] coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 26:64). Code: a way of saying that God would judge the pagan nations of the Greco-Roman world, and then vindicate his people—but that now the people were to be understood as those who recognised Jesus as the one appointed for dominion and glory.

Hence, six weeks later, when Jesus was hidden in heaven, the angelic messengers declared that he will return in the same way: that is, with the clouds of heaven. The disciples had asked if Jesus was about to restore the kingdom to Israel; but this was still the time of being hidden until the judgement was passed. In the meantime, they were to invite all nations: that is, in the very midst of God sitting in judgement over the pagan nations, all who would name Jesus as Lord—whether from among the Jewish diaspora or the gentiles—would be included, incorporated into the one like a human, or, Son of Man.

All this came to pass, as across the Roman empire nations fell and rose, and Christianity spread across north Africa and Asia Minor and Europe, even to our own islands at the very end of the Roman world.

But what of us, who live so long after? We believe, in the words of the Nicene Creed, that Jesus ‘ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.’ But what does it mean to believe that?

It means, I think, that we need a code language that allows us to speak of our hope that the Lord God is at work in human history to bring about justice in a world that is full of injustice, and at the same time to hold before God all that is good and beautiful about the nations we are from and live in and that we want to see flourish and don’t want to see swept away. A language that enables our Iranian brothers and sisters to speak of all that is good about Persian society, and to endure the problems they face, ranging from being denied employment, to imprisonment and execution. A language that enables those of us who are British citizens to bless all that is wonderful about being British, and to speak prophetically to power (that, by the way, is what the Bishops are doing in the House of Lords: being Daniel in the court of Babylon). A language that holds us back from putting our nationality before God, but that keeps us from thinking the nations are of no concern. A language that affirms divine judgement and divine mercy.

One of our codes is that of art. At the west end of the Minster you will find a depiction, in stained-glass, of the gazing disciples and the two men in white robes and the cloud hiding Jesus from our sight. At the east end of the Minster you will find a depiction, in stained-glass, of the ascended Jesus seated on a throne in heaven. The ascension seen from both ends, if you like.

Another code is apocalypse, that fantastical genre in the Bible, in books such as Daniel and Revelation and in parts of the Gospels, that push language to its poetical limits to express faith. That, by the way, is a language that resonates with science fiction and fantasy in books and comics and films and tv dramas. It is not meant to be understood, so much as to immerse ourselves in.

Then there is music: both music directly inspired by the ascension, engaging us at an emotional level; and music that inspires us as we seek to live in the light of the ascension, lives hidden with Christ in heaven. This is the code David and the choir teach us, by which our life together is enriched.

What these codes have in common is the ability to express what reason cannot, to say what we don’t have the words for, to live with our feet on the ground and our head in the clouds, to grow deeper into mystery. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York have produced a booklet, the Novena 2018, of daily images and prayers for each day between Ascension and Pentecost, a week on Sunday. Please take a copy, a gift to you. Whether you are just beginning to learn this language, or a fluent speaker, I commend it to you as a way we might speak together of our faith over the next few days.

This is the language of faith. May we find again our voice to sing the Lord’s song in the strange land in which we live.