This is the script of this morning's Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4's Today programme:
Today is not just Election Day – in the Christian calendar it is also Ascension Day. This is the day when, according to the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament, the risen Jesus ended forty days with his friends by being taken from their sight on a mountain top.
Whereas most people have some idea about what Christmas and Easter are – perhaps even Pentecost – Ascension Day tends to get overlooked… even by many Christians. I guess this might be because this isn't the easiest event to explain – packed with theology rather than aerodynamics.
Seen from the perspective of his followers, it was yet another twist in the tale. They had spent a couple of years with Jesus of Nazareth, daring to believe the world could be different and that he would be the one to lead them to freedom from Roman military occupation. They had pinned on him their hopes for a brighter future, free from oppression and humiliation.
Well, it didn't quite work out that way. Instead, they saw this man from the hill country up north dying on a Roman gallows: victim rather than victor. Several days later his friends, whose hopes and longings lay bleeding in the dirt of Calvary, found he was with them again – the same but different. They kept having strange encounters with him, questioning what this was all about.
But, with the Ascension they lost him again. And it was now up to them to work out what this all meant for them and their community for the future. Clearly, he trusted them to get on with the job for him. And the church that grew from here was a movement shaped by people who knew that the world was now a different place.
No lovely 'happily ever after' end to a sanitised story, but a harsh dose of realism for people who now faced the same challenges of living truthfully in a world of death and threat and suffering.
So, today's not a day for working out the mechanics of the Ascension, but for wrestling with its meaning. A day for letting go of the simple faith – for growing up and taking responsibility for where we go from here. No fantasy here, no romanticism, no pretending that things are better (or worse) than they are, no false hopes, no illusions, no empty promises about a glorious future or how long that future might last for them.
And that's Ascension Day. And it might just shine a light on some of the issues of the day – even suddenly deciding to support Leicester City (despite Richard III being a York City fan – obviously). It's about not being a victim of other people's decisions, but, grasping your own future with both hands, taking responsibility. Or, as Jesus didn't quite put it: “onward and upward!”
