While the Ascension of Christ is a moment of spiritual transcendence that may be difficult to relate or react to, it is also a material mystery. Lewis draws attention to the physical importance of the Resurrection, pointing out that the Ascension, like the Resurrection, required a Body-a point that cannot be dropped. You cannot take away the Ascension without putting something else in its place. But if it were real, then something happened to it after it ceased to appear. If it were a vision then it was the most systematically deceptive and lying vision on record. And all Christians must explain why God sent or permitted a ‘vision’ or ‘ghost’ whose behaviour seems almost exclusively directed to convincing the disciples that it was not a vision or a ghost but a really corporeal being. And if the Risen Body were not objective, then all of us (Christian or not) must invent some explanation for the disappearance of the corpse. For a phantom can just fade away but an objective entity must go somewhere-something must happen to it. Lewis took up this very question in Miracles:Ĭan we then simply drop the Ascension story? The answer is that we can do so only if we regard the Resurrection appearances as those of a ghost or hallucination. Can we drop this story of Christ soaring through the sky?Ĭ. This is the Faith, after all, not a fairy tale. Can people really take seriously the account of a Man floating into the clouds? Is the Ascension worth the risk of alienating those influenced by a cynical realism? There is something about the Ascension that is inconceivable, even for a miracle-something that is almost too fabulous about the idea and image of Jesus “flying.” For those who stumble over the Ascension, there is often an aspect of mythical fantasy or primitive whimsy involved in accepting such a thing. “And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight…” (Acts 1:9). The Ascension of Jesus Christ, related in the Gospels of Mark and Luke and referred to throughout the New Testament, can be taken as something of an awkward anecdote in the Catholic canon.
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