Speaking Of The Ascension

Summary

In this episode of Speaking of Faith, Bishop DeDe delves into the theological significance of the Ascension of Jesus. She and Adam explore its implications for the disciples, the transformation it brings to their faith, and the call for modern Christians to bear witness to their faith in a contemporary context. The conversation emphasizes the importance of community, the church's role in society, and the personal reflections on how the Ascension speaks to individual faith journeys.

Takeaways

• The Ascension is often overlooked but is crucial to Christian faith.
• The Gospel of Luke provides a unique perspective on the Ascension.
• The transformation of the disciples occurs at the moment of Ascension.
• Jesus' Ascension signifies a new mission for the disciples.
• The events of Jesus' life are transcendent and relevant for all time.
• The community of faith is called to worship and bear witness.
• Personal reflections on faith can deepen understanding of the Ascension.
• The church must acknowledge its shortcomings and strive for growth.
• Agency in faith is essential; believers are called to act.
• The Ascension invites Christians to be living witnesses in the world.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Importance of Faith Conversations
00:32 Exploring the Theological Significance of Ascension
01:01 Understanding the Scriptural Context of Ascension
02:26 The Transformation of the Disciples at Ascension
04:52 The Universal Implications of Jesus' Ascension
06:22 The Call to Witness and Community After Ascension
08:41 Personal Reflections on Ascension and Faith
11:05 Navigating the Church's Role in Modern Faith
15:42 Acknowledging the Church's Shortcomings and Growth
16:10 The Role of Agency in Faith and Action
21:32 Embracing the Call to Be Living Witnesses
23:20 Conclusion and Invitation to Reflect on Ascension

AI Disclosure: To support our staff in their limited time, many of our episode summaries are first generated by AI and then edited by the Communications Director to accurately reflect and preview our podcast episodes.

Transcript

Bishop DeDe (00:02.84)
Hello and welcome to Speaking of Faith. This podcast is about learning to speak of those things that are most important to us. So whether you are a Christian, an Episcopalian, or just someone seeking to know more and to speak about things that are important to you, welcome. This podcast is for you. My name is DeDe Duncan-Probe. I am the Episcopal Bishop of Central New York. I am here with Adam Eichelberger, and we're going to speak about faith.

And today's topic is really an important topic, theologically, in the Christian faith. We're gonna be talking about ascension, the ascension of Jesus. Often in our cycle of the church and in our faith, this ascension is overlooked a bit. And yet it is crucial to our faith. And so I'm really excited to talk about this with you today and invite you to consider more deeply.

what the ascension means for you and your own belief and your own heart and relationship with God. So first, I wanna talk a bit about the practical matters of what happens in the scriptures talking about this. It's a really interesting reality that only the Gospel of Luke really delves into this more, this ascension of Jesus. And we know from the Gospel of Luke,

that the the gospeler is very interested in setting down an organized account of the Jesus event. We also know that Luke and Acts are two books in the in the our canon of scripture that go together. They're a bit chapter one, chapter two or book one, book two, depending on how you want to think of that. and so with Luke acts that

And dear Theophilus, we're going to get a better understanding of these events that take place. It's worth noting that after the resurrection, we hear through both the gospel accounts and in Acts that Jesus continues to be with the disciple, that there are post-resurrection appearances. And to note that those post-resurrection appearances, while...

Bishop DeDe (02:26.382)
clearly meaningful and profound for the disciples do not change the fact that they continue to be afraid and worried and are uncertain and those resurrection appearances aren't like a fix for that. They continue to, over the span of time, more or less the 40 days of Easter that we celebrate, they continue to wrestle with what does this mean and what does it mean that Jesus is resurrected.

And it is at the ascension, this moment of they go out from Jerusalem together with Jesus and Jesus calls them out and they go out. And as Jesus is disappearing and going up from them, it really codifies or catalyzes or, you know, there's all kinds of words we can use here. I'm thinking of all of them all at the same time, which isn't a great thing really. But that this moment of Jesus

going up and ascending solidifies something in them that is so powerful that they go back to the temple. All the fear is gone, all of the hiding and the, they go to the temple and praise God that it drives them as a community to a place of worship and to worship God. So one of the things about this moment in scripture is this proclamation of Jesus that begins in community.

is now experienced in community and they go and they praise God together. And there's a couple of things about the Ascension that are true. One is it's transformative for the disciples. All this time they've been waiting actually in the post resurrection narratives for when are you going to restore Jerusalem? When are you going to make a new order? When are we having the new Solomon's temple? When is that happening?

With the ascension, that conversation ends. And a new conversation begins, that we are called to go to all the ends of the earth and be witnesses for the life, the passion, the resurrection, and the ascension of Jesus, that Jesus is ascending back to the Father, that the disciples finally see and know that this Jesus is greater than they've known.

Bishop DeDe (04:52.31)
not just a rabbi, not just a human, but more expansive. Also, the Jesus event, if you will, the life, passion, teaching, you know, with the teachings and all, and the resurrection, are events for the whole world. Not just Jerusalem, not just rooted in history, not merely an interesting thing that happens in this time, but rather something that is transcendent for all time.

that as a community of faith, the disciples are to proclaim Jesus, to worship God, and to see in total that Jesus is ascended to the Father and to be a community that is bearing witness, that has been commanded that the witnesses, that we love one another, that we worship God, that we are no longer bound by fear or time or space. And so the ascension is this moment that for the disciples is transcendent.

and for us is transcendent because in it we see that God is not locked into a time period, that Jesus is alive and relevant in this moment. And like the disciples in that moment and our discipleship now, that we are called to bear witness to Jesus, to talk about this God who is beyond all time and space, this Jesus that has come to us to teach us to die.

to be resurrected and then ascends back to God. The circle, if you will, is complete. And so that is so profound for us. And I wonder, listener, for you, how this ascension speaks to you in your own heart. It may be something you've never really thought about, just another passage of, you know, Jesus appears to the disciples and then he ascends and so, okay. But to recognize that for theologians down through history,

at the ascension is the moment where the disciples go from their fearful kind of off topic selves to being really sold out for Jesus, as it were. They go to the temple, they're worshiping, all the fear seems to be sort of pushed back from them. And then also this instruction they receive to wait until they're baptized by the Holy Spirit.

Bishop DeDe (07:21.258)
And so instead of hiding away from that moment until Pentecost, there's a sense of expectation, of eager anticipation. And so for us as followers of Jesus, we too in this moment, as we're journeying with the disciples from the moment of resurrection, hearing about the post resurrection narratives, we too on ascension now are brought together. We are

coalesced as a community together that's waiting expectantly for the mission to begin. And so this shift is from the past to the present to looking up into the future. There's so much that can be said about Ascension. I'm going to stop there because I can go on for a while and talk about how for the disciples that had been about the past and who Jesus was and appeared to them.

and then Ascension becomes about the future and who they're becoming as a community. But for you, dear listener, how does Ascension speak to your faith? And now I'm gonna turn to Adam and welcome your questions or the things that are kind of alive for you in this conversation.

Adam Eichelberger (08:41.63)
So the things that kind of jump out at me first is I agree 100 % with what you said at the beginning, Bishop. As many of you listeners may know, I was raised in the Roman Catholic tradition. And this is one of those things for me as I was growing up, that was always called a holy day of obligation, that I was obliged to go to church on that day and participate in the mass. And I never really understood what was going on. And as...

Bishop DeDe (09:01.213)
Right.

Adam Eichelberger (09:08.902)
I got older and I thought about it more. I read the scripture more. And even just in this conversation, the two things that kind of stood out to me, Bishop, is one, historically, and you can correct me if I'm wrong here, but the early Christians, the early followers of Jesus were like, he's coming back like now. It's happening. It's happening now. And all the things that he's going to do, the restoration of Jerusalem and all the things that they had expected in this huge change was supposed to happen now. And first of all, I'm kind of glad it didn't.

Bishop DeDe (09:24.894)
Right. Exactly. Yeah.

Adam Eichelberger (09:37.564)
Because if we're looking at Jesus coming back 2000 years ago, then like I wouldn't be here listeners, we may not be here. So I'm kind of glad I got a shot at living. But also the thing that really stands out to me, Bishop, is what you said about how we are now called into the work. That Jesus makes this declaration that like, have to go back to the Father. If I don't go back to the Father,

Bishop DeDe (09:37.889)
Yeah.

Bishop DeDe (09:44.974)
and

Bishop DeDe (09:58.157)
Yes.

Adam Eichelberger (10:06.108)
you will not receive the Holy Spirit. And so he's literally like, I'm giving you all of the tools that you need to go out and do what you need to do to bring about the kingdom of heaven here on earth. And that's really, really profound to me that it's not just like this day where I got to show up at church and sit there and wonder what's going on, that it's literally me being called into the work of Jesus. And that feels kind of good. That's right.

Bishop DeDe (10:12.27)
Mm-hmm.

That's right.

Bishop DeDe (10:24.757)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (10:29.184)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, we become part of the narrative. And again, it's inter-baptismal covenant, but let's,

Adam Eichelberger (10:35.452)
That's right. So the thing that I wanted to bring up, we do have one question that I wanted to ask, and we can have more of a conversation around Ascension. But Janet did have a question, and it's kind of a good one that kind of lines up with this a little bit. So Janet asked, how do we know what we are doing as Christians is what God wants us to do, since the church is so different today from when it began?

Bishop DeDe (11:04.238)
Janet, if you have an answer to that, I just welcome it. think, you know, we have Merton has a wonderful prayer. Thomas Merton, a faithful monk who, you know, that we don't always know, but we know that our desire to please God, please us God. That curiosity and the humility to say,

we may miss the mark and clearly down through centuries and today, the church does miss the mark whenever we become complicit with the brokenness of humanity and the sinfulness. It's easy to look to the churches during, when lynchings were happening in the South and churches would let out early. don't know if you're aware of this listener, churches would let out early so that

the faithful could go and watch the lynching and cheer it on. These moments when the church has been so far from the truth of God, so far from the redemption of God and those sins we continue to repent of. And the church today, you know, the only thing worse than organized religion is disorganized religion really. And yet, and yet,

organized religion continues to this day to miss this mark. You know, we often think about with the disciples traveling with Jesus, eating with Jesus. And, you know, Adam and I have talked about this a number of times. When I became a bishop, there was this expectation that I would get kind of bishop-y, that I would, you know, kind of go around like kiss my ring and, you know, don't you know who I am?

And this confusion we sometimes have, and we'll talk about this, I think, in a podcast maybe in the fall. We'll take some time and really talk about our humanity as followers of Jesus and how the church embodies that humanity. But I have sought in my ministry to use, for Jesus to not only be an exemplar of my faith and my savior and my Lord, but also to teach me how to minister, that I'm not called apart from.

Bishop DeDe (13:24.43)
or elevated by, but that in authentically who I am, who you are listener, that that's how we're called to be the gospel, we're called to be in relationship, we're called to be the people of God and the beloved, that all of this being, we're so good at doing and one of the sins of the world around us is power and prestige and the search for power over people, dehumanizing others.

That isn't the gospel of Jesus that we receive in the message of God. It isn't the gospel in this ascension day. The gospel message is that we be witnesses, that you will be my witnesses, to zero in on that. The witness is two. We're not purveyors of, we're not professionals with, we're witnesses to. And what we're witnesses to is what God has done in our own lives.

So when we have these questions, Janet, around is the church being what it was called to be in the beginning, to return to what, to Jesus, to return to what we've started with and say, you know, that first fire of knowing God loves me, I'm going to bear, bear, be a witness to that. I'm going to share what God has done in my life when, and the ways that we speak to one another that is so foundational to all that is. And to return to that,

And when we see the church as an error, just like that beautiful prayer we have in the Episcopal Church, when an error that it would be corrected, that where it needs to repent, it would repent, that where the church is off base, that we would be part of returning to the dignity, the work of being, those honored traditions. And as you know, this podcast really has always been centered around the baptismal covenant.

We're gonna talk about that a bit in the fall and do kind of, you know, renew our understanding of it. But we are called to be the people of God. And so sometimes the church gets it wrong, sometimes it gets it right, but all of us together are called to be it.

Adam Eichelberger (15:42.096)
That's one of the things I've really come to love and appreciate about the faith that I found in the Episcopal Church bishop is we're not willing. We are unafraid to say sometimes we get it wrong. We're unafraid to own up to our shortcomings or our failures and to work to make amends. And I think that that's a really beautiful thing. What one of the questions that I had this just kind of came to me and I was hoping maybe we could kind of talk about this a little bit before we wrap up.

Bishop DeDe (15:52.406)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (15:59.982)
Mm hmm. Yep.

Yeah.

Bishop DeDe (16:10.158)
Mm.

Adam Eichelberger (16:11.964)
When we talk about Ascension and kind of like what I mentioned before, I think that sometimes, and I will admit that this is a little bit of a possibly flawed view of what God is trying to show me through the life, death, resurrection, Ascension of Jesus is why doesn't he just come back now? You know, you know, like it's really easy for me and listener. Maybe you're kind of like me. Maybe you kind of see everything.

Bishop DeDe (16:15.95)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (16:32.204)
Ha ha ha ha!

Adam Eichelberger (16:40.238)
that's going on around us and you see what's going on in our world and our country in our communities and just like you can hurry up jesus anytime i'm i'm ready and i i guess like where do we go in these times where we kind of feel so spread thin where we feel so discouraged and like how does this spirit of the ascension play into that

Bishop DeDe (16:54.968)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (17:07.02)
Wow, that's such a great question. And I think first, what comes to mind when you even ask it is maybe Jesus does. Jesus promises when two or three are gathered in my name. So here we are, the two of us, Jesus is present in our midst. there's, maybe Megan or y'all can talk about this in the theology for the rest of us, or we can talk about this in this podcast later.

Adam Eichelberger (17:15.367)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (17:33.634)
There's been many understandings of Jesus' return, whether it's pre-millennial, post-millennial, you know, there's lots of good deep conversations that can be had around how we understand revelations or what we think coming back means for Jesus or the end of the world and eschatology of Jesus. In this ascension, we have a sense of that eschatology that the end...

has happened of Jesus's ministry and now the new beginning of us becoming already not yet being the newness of God. But when we're talking about Jesus is coming back, I think Jesus does come to us and we just miss it all the time. We get very focused on, well, this is what Jesus coming back would mean. These things would be fixed.

Adam Eichelberger (18:19.41)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (18:27.426)
Well, a lot of the things that we want Jesus to fix are things we're called to address. We're called to fix them. And so one of those questions about why good things or bad things happen to good people is the drunk driver. Why doesn't God stop the drunk driver? And what we're doing sometimes is we're giving up our own agency to say, we're part of that narrative that when we are not,

Adam Eichelberger (18:42.76)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (18:57.198)
ready for something, to be good stewards of our own power. When we see something happening in the world that we wish God would just smite them, whoever them may be for you, God should smite them, to say, how am I a part of? How am I using my agency? How am I using my voice? How am I speaking my faith? How am I a living witness in this time?

Adam Eichelberger (19:08.99)
Right.

Bishop DeDe (19:25.454)
to God being present in our midst, in us. And so we sometimes look for Jesus to come back and fix what we're afraid to take on, what we're afraid to do. And we live in fear so much, rather than like bringing it back to the ascension with the disciples, that suddenly they cast off all that, lock it in a room for fear of the Jews. All of that is thrown off.

and they go to the temple and worship God and the holiness of God. I mean, just like Rosa Parks was so right about what she said was, it takes that moment with a moment of inspiration, all the fear disappears.

Adam Eichelberger (20:43.708)
Yeah.

Bishop DeDe (21:05.088)
when you're convicted and when you're committed, when you make that commitment that we're gonna live for Jesus, the fear goes away because we have a purpose that's bigger than our fear. And so in this time, in this world, in this place, when we're wishing God would just fix it or come back or just stop the madness, that is our invitation to say this is your turn. It is your turn to stop the madness. It is your turn.

Adam Eichelberger (21:29.278)
Mmm.

Bishop DeDe (21:32.984)
to be the living witness, it is your turn to reach out and say, enough. Down through the ages, there have always been people, persons, like Mr. Rogers tells us, the helpers, to look for the helpers. It is our turn to be the helpers, to cast off the fear that binds us and to be so committed and have that spark of recognition of who Jesus really is that we therefore go into the world as witnesses, that we say, no, enough.

there will be no dehumanization on my watch. I will actively seek to work for the betterment of this world. I will be part of the healing redemption of this moment. I will no longer be bound by fear, but I will speak the mercy of God to this world. So I think our calling is to be that.

Adam Eichelberger (22:24.742)
Absolutely. it's just, serves as a great reminder that Jesus says, you will do greater things in my name. And this is, and it's an invitation and I know it may be bad theology, but the thing that I'm hearing in this Bishop and maybe listener, you can kind of share this with me is that, yeah, God can do anything. But I think that there maybe is, it's a glimpse into the mind of God that he could say, yeah, I can do everything. But boy, do you know what you can do?

Bishop DeDe (22:30.904)
That's right.

Bishop DeDe (22:53.056)
Mm-hmm. Well, it really is. you know, I think it was, you know, there have been many saints who have said this in different ways, but, you know, I think it was mostly St. Catherine. But we're Christ's heart and hands and feet. You know, we're the, we have the agency. We're called to be living witnesses over and over the saints tell us, you.

Adam Eichelberger (22:53.97)
which I think is really amazing.

Adam Eichelberger (23:10.856)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (23:20.558)
you take on and Jesus tells us to take up the cross and follow Jesus that we would be the living witnesses. So do we have any other questions or

Adam Eichelberger (23:31.642)
No more questions this week, Bishop, but I invite you listeners, make sure you do submit some questions for us. can go to cnyepiscopal.org and click on the podcast button to submit your questions, or you can leave them on any of the podcast platforms or on YouTube. Remember, you can watch us on YouTube as well. But also I ask you, what does the Ascension look like in your lives? Let us know. It doesn't always have to be questions. You can send us a comment. You can give us your feedback.

and let us know what this looks like in your lives.

Bishop DeDe (24:03.062)
Yep, because our next podcast will be about Pentecost. We're going to talk about when the Holy Spirit does show up. questions and comments about that are welcome. so, listener, it is now your turn. I pass this to you to go and to speak about your faith, to talk with others and have to ask questions and be curious, how might we be living witnesses to the ascension of Jesus Christ in this hurting world?

Adam Eichelberger (24:07.207)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (24:32.792)
How are we, like the disciples, called to cast off fear and to go boldly into worship and praise God with all aspects of our lives? So may you be blessed and be a blessing. Speak your faith with courage and that we may hear and know the Spirit of God alive in our midst. Until next time, I look forward to speaking with you soon. Take good care.