Lectionary Commentaries for May 29, 2025
Ascension of Our Lord

The Ascension is not an easy day to preach. Luke is the only gospel that gives us an actual picture of the moment—and then he gives us differing accounts! Luke 24 describes the scene differently than Acts 1:1–11, most notably changing the event’s timing.

In today’s reading, the ascension appears to take place on the evening of Easter itself, whereas in Acts, 40 days have passed. When the scriptures provide two versions of the same story, there are often different theological insights brought into focus by each. They function differently in the narratives in which they are embedded, and they focus the reader’s attention on distinct details and questions.¹ Given its proximity to the events of Easter morning, the version of the ascension in Luke 24 highlights the relationship between the ascension and Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus’ person is centered in the narrative. Acts 1 highlights the relationship between the ascension, the nature and work of the church, and the promise of the Holy Spirit.

These topics are, of course, related in Luke-Acts. The work of the Spirit has been intimately connected with Jesus’ embodied presence from the start of Luke’s gospel (in other words, 1:35, 41; 2:26; 3:22), so it is no surprise that these passages share significant similarities: Both call the disciples to wait in the city until “clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4–5).² both describe a proclamatory mission to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem (Luke 24:47; Acts 1:8). And critically, both use the word “witnesses” to describe the disciples’ identities (Luke 24:48; Acts 1:8).³ But if the emphasis in Acts is on the horizon and the significant changes that are coming to this small band of believers, the emphasis in Luke is on the continuity of God’s faithfulness and the continuity in Jesus’ person prior to and after the resurrection.

The inclusion of verses 44–45 in today’s reading speaks to the trustworthy character of God in Christ. Much has changed for the disciples on this Easter day, but the words that Jesus speaks on this monumental evening resonate with what he spoke to them prior—and significantly, these words also stand in continuity with “the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms” (verse 44).  The new creation of Easter does not negate God’s original creative, covenantal work. Luke uses the word “fulfill” to get at this continuity (verse 44). This has significance, of course, for how Christians today understand their relationship to the promises God makes to Israel.

But the continuity between what Jesus says now and what Jesus said before also has christological significance. Just prior to this passage, Jesus eats a piece of fish to show that he is no ghost. For all the differences between his pre- and post-resurrection body, Luke insists that the resurrection is more than a visionary projection. The resurrection has enfleshed weight. There are moments when Luke highlights the distinctiveness of Jesus’ resurrected body (his disappearance in Emmaus springs to mind; Luke 24:31), but as the text moves toward the ascension, Luke highlights the continuities between Jesus’ body now and Jesus’ body before Easter morning.⁴ It is as if Luke wants to make sure readers do not mistake the ascension for a trick of the light. More significantly, Luke wants to ensure that readers do not interpret the resurrection as smoke and mirrors.

In Luke 24, Jesus’ physical, resurrected body is “carried up into heaven” (verse 51). There are all sorts of implications of this act for theologies of redemption and eschatological hope. But I want to focus on just one opportunity that preachers might take advantage of on this day. The ascension affirms God’s embrace of created life—human and nonhuman alike.

In contrast to theological readings of the ascension that emphasize Jesus’ escape from a fallen world, theologians like Elizabeth Johnson and Hannah Malcolm have emphasized creation’s exaltation.⁵ Scientists are becoming increasingly aware of the interconnectedness of enfleshed life. For Jesus to become a body—in other words, to breathe and eat and be born through a birth canal—microbes, bacteria, and even DNA from all manner of creatures would have had to have been held in his flesh. This is what being “flesh” entails. When Jesus ascends to heaven, all of this creaturely life is welcomed into the throne-room of God. The ascension is anything but a creation-denying doctrine. Luke’s emphasis on Christ’s enfleshed body being lifted to God is a profound affirmation of heaven’s redemptive embrace of the entire cosmos.

The last vision of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke shows him with arms outstretched in blessing. This Sunday, preachers have an opportunity to speak the blessing of the ascension over a groaning planet.

Notes

1. My thanks to Dr. Colin Yuckman for his insights about how Luke’s two versions of the ascension remind him of the diverse theological functions that the creation accounts in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2–3 play (personal conversation, January 14, 2025).
2. Acts 1 uses the language of the “Holy Spirit” explicitly, (verse 8).
3. The Greek word for “witness” is the same as the word for “martyr,” suggesting the costly, embodied commitment this proclamation will require.
4. Brittany Wilson, The Embodied God: Seeing the Divine in Luke-Acts and the Early Church (Oxford: 2021), 260.
5. Elizabeth Johnson, Creation and the Cross: The Mercy of God for a Planet in Peril (Orbis, 2018); Hannah Malcolm, “Body Without End: Biological Mutualism and the Body of Christ,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 25, no. 2 (April 2023): 312–328.

Forty days after Easter in the liturgical calendar is a festival day, the Ascension of Our Lord.¹ I first learned that Ascension was a part of the Christian year when I was a college student studying abroad in Germany. We had a full week off from classes. Families and friendship groups gathered for hiking and picnics. I don’t know that much religious observance happened during that time, but it was great to have a week’s break before the end of the semester.

The author of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles narrates two accounts of the Ascension of Jesus: Luke 24:50–53 and Acts 1:6–11. The version in Acts fills in the gaps left by the brief story Luke writes at the end of the Gospel.

Acts opens with a prologue (verses 1–5), which parallels the Gospel’s prologue (Luke 1:1–4), including addressing an otherwise unknown person, Theophilus (either Luke’s benefactor or a shorthand term for any believer, since the name means “lover of God”). The respective prologues connect the two volumes, yet while the Gospel’s prologue gives an overview of what is to come, the prologue of Acts summarizes the Gospel even as it introduces the second volume of Luke’s story. Such prologues were a common literary technique in ancient Greek literature.

Acts 1:2 mentions the ascension of Jesus into heaven. This point is not entirely necessary, since Luke will provide a longer narration of the ascension, but it functions to connect the end of the Gospel with the beginning of Acts. While the Gospel of Luke depicts the ascension as taking place on the same day as the resurrection, in Acts the event transpires 40 days later. If we believe that Luke was writing a historical account of the life of Jesus and the early church, this might be a difficult point to reconcile. However, Luke is not writing history, but a witness or testimony of the early Christ community designed to bring others to belief in Jesus as the Christ.

According to Acts, during these 40 days, Jesus proved to the disciples that he was indeed alive and continued to teach them about the kingdom of God. Like Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness prior to his public ministry (Luke 4:1–13), these 40 days prepare the discipleship community for challenges which lie before them. Drawing attention to Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom of God both connects the Acts prologue to the core of Jesus’ teaching in the Gospel and creates a literary inclusio (Acts 1:3 and 28:31).

Jesus orders the disciples to stay in Jerusalem “to wait for the promise of the Father,” which is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit they will experience 10 days later, on the day of Pentecost. As I discuss in the post for the third Sunday of Easter, the Holy Spirit is a major theme throughout Luke-Acts. In Acts, the Holy Spirit ensures the continuity of Jesus’ ministry once Christ is no longer physically present among them.

Returning to the “kingdom” theme, the disciples question Jesus, “Lord, is this the time you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” (verse 6). Their question expresses one aspect of Second Temple messianic expectations. However, Jesus insists that God’s redemption of Israel will not be according to human timelines or by political change, but through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Rather than following a specific timeline, this gift will propel them forward across the geographical landscape; they will become Christ’s witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

Indeed, the disciples will take their story of Jesus to Samaria (Acts 8:5), the seacoast (8:40), Damascus (9:10), Antioch (where disciples were first called “Christians,” 11:26), Asia Minor (13:13), Europe (16:11), and finally, Rome—though Paul was on his way to the “ends of the earth,” which for him was Spain.

If we were to think about how the disciples heard what Jesus was telling them, it would sound something like this:

• Stay here in the big city you are visiting (Jerusalem), until God makes God’s presence known.
• Then go from this city, to the outlying region (Judea)—the place where you are comfortable.
• Then go to those people whom you despise, and who despise you (Samaria).
• Then go to those people you don’t even know, who are probably very different from you (to the ends of the earth).

Jesus ascends into heaven, and the disciples stand around looking up at the sky and wondering what he just said and what it all means. The words of the “two men in white robes” (where have we seen them before? Hint: Luke 24:4) probably don’t provide a lot of comfort.

Indeed, as the disciples returned to Jerusalem, they initially must have had to grapple with their fear of all that had recently happened; they had to work through their grief and sense of abandonment that Jesus was gone (again!); and they had to deal with the reality that one of the 12 apostles had betrayed them and Jesus and then died a horrific death. They had to wait for God to act. We don’t usually think about Ascension as a time of waiting; that sounds more like Advent. But waiting is always a holy time, a time to empty ourselves, and be filled with new possibilities. Robert W. Wall states well what this time of waiting for God means:

Waiting for God to act is … a community project. Waiting with others is an act of solidarity with friends. The apostles do not scatter and go their separate ways to await a private Spirit-filling or personal experience of divine faithfulness. They ‘were joined together’ in a specific place to await God’s action on them all.²

This is Ascension—another time of waiting for the dawn from on high to break upon us.

Notes

1. Commentary previously published on this website for May 18, 2023.
2. Robert W. Wall, “The Acts of the Apostles,” in New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, ed. Leander E. Keck (Nashville: Abingdon, 2002), 45.

Since ancient times Psalm 47 has been used for worship.¹ It is plain to see why Christians have used it on Ascension Day. “God has gone up with a shout” (verse 5) brings to mind Jesus’ ascent into heaven. “The early church used the psalm to celebrate the ascension of Jesus, a practice that is commonly followed still in the liturgy of many churches,” observes biblical scholar James Luther Mays.²

But long before Easter, Psalm 47 had a place in Israel’s worship. It is an enthronement psalm, not for an earthly king but for God. In Psalm 47, the Lord reigns. Psalm 47 proclaims that God is in heaven, ruling over earth.³ The psalm summits in verse 5: “God has gone up with a shout, the LORD with the sound of the trumpet.” Some scholars have supposed that 47:5 envisions the entrance of God into the sanctuary, symbolized by the procession of the holy ark of the covenant. In any case Psalm 47:5 “expresses the theological heart of the psalter—God reigns!”⁴

Psalm 47 may be divided into two sections. Verses 1–4 begin with the cue (or command) to clap, shout, and sing. Then we hear the reason for all this joy: God “subdued peoples” and “nations” and “chose our heritage” for God’s people. God made Israel into a nation with a name and a land to dwell in. “The pride of Jacob” (verse 4) refers to the land God gave to the people, land that once belonged to other nations. In the New Testament, we find a similar expression: “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:10). There is a before and an after, defined by the mighty acts of God.

Next comes the (literal) high point of the psalm, verse 5 in which “God has gone up with a shout.” This may refer to a processional in worship, demonstrating that God is enthroned in the heavens. The theological meaning is that that God rules over all nations—indeed, the entire universe. Israel rejoiced in being God’s people, but also in knowing God as Lord of all, not just some local deity.

The second section of the psalm, verses 6–9, continues the joy. In verse 6 alone, the people are told four times to sing. Here’s why: God is Lord over all the peoples. “God is king over the nations.” The kings and princes—those who wield power on earth—gather to worship God. If only we could hear this psalm instead of just read it, our ears would ring with a royal fanfare of trumpets, and the clapping, shouting, and singing would be like waves crashing on the shore.

Above the joyful din come the clear notes of God’s mercy and power. In particular events in history, God is at work delivering and saving Israel. Yet in those specific acts of God, the general mercy and power of God are revealed for all nations. Since God rules over all, all who join in the worship become partakers of God’s blessings.

With this background in mind, it makes perfect sense that churches use Psalm 47 on Ascension Day. The obvious connection is that Christians applied “God has gone up with a shout” (Psalm 47:5) to Jesus being “lifted up” into the sky (Acts 1:9). But there is a deeper theological meaning, for “Jesus of Nazareth connected his career with the announcement of the reign of God (Mark 1:14–15),” observes James Luther Mays. Jesus’ whole life—his incarnation—embodies for us the reign of God. The story of Jesus up to and including the ascension became for Christians a new point of reference for “celebration of God’s rule.”⁵

Likewise, the text from Ephesians speaks of Christ “seated at God’s right hand in the heavenly places, far above all” earthly power. God has made Jesus’ feet “the head over all things for the church” (Ephesians 1:20–22). Therefore, the first Christians, though a small and endangered band, spread the gospel with boldness. Christ’s ascension empowered them.

In the Gospel text the risen Jesus promises the disciples that they will be “clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). Luke says that Jesus was “carried up into heaven,” and the disciples “worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God” (Luke 24:52). Perhaps the disciples used Psalm 47 to bless God in the temple.

On the Ascension of Our Lord, Psalm 47 imparts joy and confidence in God. The psalm may be spoken or sung, and it can also be preached. Psalm 47 includes “the memory of the past, experience of the present, and hope for the future.”⁶ Here is a natural outline for a three-part sermon.

Move 1: Proclaim what God has done for us in the past, including the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. Move 2: Work with our present experience as people who seek to follow Jesus, but who do not always see his reign and therefore must live by faith. But by joining in worship, we “say and act out the reality that our lives and our world have been shaped by God’s loving rule.”⁷ Move 3: Face the future with hope, trusting that one day the world will see the glory of God shining from the face of Christ.

Hymns that express the faith of Psalm 47 for Christian worship:
“Lift High the Cross” ELW 660 (a processional, just as Psalm 47 is a processional)
“This Is My Father’s World” ELW 824 (proclaims God’s rule over nature and history)
“Rejoice, for Christ Is King” ELW 430 (expresses joy in God’s reign)

Notes

Prayer is frequently found in Ephesians and placed in “strategic positions within the letter: at the outset, at the transition of the two halves of the letter, and at the end.”¹ In this letter, therefore, “theology informs prayer, and prayer itself is the vehicle for theology.”² Today’s passage, Ephesians 1:15–23, is a great place to look at this intricate relationship between prayer and theology. The author prays for his audience at length in order to reveal the grand vision of God and Christ for the church and the universe.

The author’s prayer is a carefully crafted and elevated speech, rather than spontaneous words. To grasp it fully, one needs to “parse” each sentence, clause, and phrase. The entire paragraph extending from verse 15 to verse 23 is one long sentence with multiple subordinate clauses.³ Beginning with thanksgiving (verses 15–16), the author proceeds to intercessory prayer and requests that God give the audience “a spirit of wisdom and revelation” (verse 17). This prayer for enlightenment (“with the eyes of your heart enlightened,” verse 18a) includes detailed requests:

That they may know

• what is the hope of God’s calling (verse 18b),
• what are the riches of God’s glorious inheritance among the holy ones (verse 18c),
• what is the surpassing greatness of God’s power for believers (verse 19a),
• according to the working of God’s great power (verse 19b).

The author will later turn to “calling” (4:1, 4) and “inheritance” (5:5) in the exhortation section of the letter. In 1:20–21, however, the author focuses on clarifying what he means by “the working of his great power” (verse 19b) with complex sentence structure (verses 20–21).

God’s working of power in Christ is shown by two things:

• raising Christ from the dead and
• seating Christ at God’s right hand in the heavenly places (verse 20),
• (seating him) above all natural and supernatural beings in this age and the age to come (verse 21).

In other words, Ephesians 1:20–21 conveys an idea similar to the second half of the Christ hymn in Philippians 2:9–11. In Ephesians 1:22a, the author goes on to quote Psalm 8:6, “[God] has put all things under his [presumably, Christ’s] feet,” as a christological summary. This quotation is reminiscent of 1 Corinthians 15:25–28, but the author of Ephesians transposes this cosmic subjugation of all things into the present reality.⁴ In the present, God has subjugated all things to Christ’s authority.

This high Christology has significant bearing on the church. The author continues: God “has made [Christ] the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (verses 22b–23). This wording is similar to Colossians 1:17–19.

• Colossians 1:17–19 “[Christ] himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; … For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.”
• Ephesians 1:22b–23 “[God] has made [Christ] the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”

A closer look reveals they have distinctive points of emphasis. Like Ephesians, Colossians talks about all things (ta panta), but for Colossians, the emphasis is on how all things are sustained and reconciled in Christ. Furthermore, Colossians identifies Christ as the head of the church, but in Ephesians, Christ’s headship is over all things, not only the church. As the body of Christ, the church received this “head of all things” as a glorious gift.

On Ascension Day, the prayer in Ephesians 1:15–23 encourages Christians to broaden their perspective (“the eyes of our heart”) regarding the Lord’s ascension. That the risen Christ has ascended means that he now reigns over the entire universe, despite the author’s world being dominated by Roman imperial power, and the modern world by different super-powers. The author declares that Christ “ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things” (4:10). Christ cannot be restricted within church walls, nor should Christ’s light be under a bushel basket, because the church is part of ta panta, all things, which Christ rules over as cosmic head. In Christ all are deeply connected (4:16) in one hope (4:4).

As Cindy Rigby notes, “The doctrine of the ascension reminds us to think about living lives that refuse to give up on the hope that bodies are related to one another and that the world, therefore, can be transformed.”⁵

With the author of Ephesians, who is a master of prayer, we pray that the church, and the individuals in it, can see the exalted Christ with the enlightened eyes of their hearts. In this Christ, God permeates and transforms all things, bodies, lives—human and nonhuman. At the end of the world, “we will all be transformed” (1 Corinthians 15:50, my translation), but this has already begun with Christ. “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being!” (2 Corinthians 5:17, New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition).

Notes

1. Gregory E. Sterling, “Prayer as Theological Reflection: The Function of Prayer in Ephesians,” Empsychoi Logoi—Religious Innovations in Antiquity, ed. Alberdina Houtman et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 568.
2. Luke Timothy Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament: An Interpretation, 3rd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010), 364.
3. NA28 (the standard critical edition of the Greek New Testament) presents verse 20 as the beginning of a new sentence. Yet, verse 20 is closely connected with verse 19 by a relative pronoun in verse 20 (hēn), which suggests that the previous sentence continues. This feminine singular relative pronoun in verse 20 could refer to any feminine noun (dynamis/power, energeia/working, or ischys/strength) in verse 19. I understand energeia (working) to be the antecedent, but other nouns would also make sense because Ephesians emphasizes core ideas by piling up similar words and phrases (pleonasm).
4. It needs to be mentioned that the alleged gap between the undisputed Pauline letters (for example, 1 Corinthians) and the disputed Pauline letters (for example, Ephesians) in terms of eschatology (future eschatology versus realized eschatology) would not be narrower than previously supposed. See, for example, L. Ann Jervis, Paul and Time: Life in the Temporality of Christ (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2023), which argues for a completely renewed temporality in Christ for those in Christ.
5. Cynthia L. Rigby, Holding Faith: A Practical Introduction to Christian Doctrine (Nashville: Abingdon, 2018), 273.