Ascension Day - why is it important?

Ascension Day is like a door we walk through. It leads us from the season of Easter, which the feast closes, towards Pentecost, which it anticipates.

The story records the moment Jesus returns to heaven following his resurrection and his several post-resurrection encounters with his disciples. It is a transition moment, a turning point, when Jesus promises his disciples they will be gifted with God’s Spirit, to be their comfort and strength for the work of mission that lies before them.

Jesus’ ascension is alluded to in the Gospel of Luke and also in the longer ending of the Gospel of Mark (Mark 16: 9ff.). Here, Mark rapidly recounts Jesus’ appearances to Mary Magdalene and to two disciples (suggesting the two disciples walking on the road to Emmaus, Luke 24: 13-35), followed by Jesus’ commissioning of his disciples. Then, Mark writes:

“So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it.” (Mark 16: 19-20)

Acts 1: 1-11 (one of the lectionary’s set readings for the day) describes Jesus’ ascension in much greater detail, and marks the only time Jesus appears other than in the four Gospels.

All this makes Ascension Day an important feast of the Church, as well as one of its most ancient. In the early 5th century, Augustine of Hippo describes its Apostolic origin, and indicates that the celebration was well-established before his time. It became one of the ecumenical feasts across all Christian traditions, alongside the Passion, Easter, and Pentecost.

In the Eastern Church, where the feast is observed with an all-night vigil, it is known in Greek as Analepsis, the "taking up", and also as the Episozomene, the "salvation from on high" (emphasising that, by ascending into his glory, Christ completed the work of our redemption).

Ascension is not widely celebrated in western Churches, however. (Although Methodists get a chance to mark it when Wesley Day also falls on 24 May.) It falls exactly 40 days after Easter Sunday, which is why it is always on a Thursday – for some, “Holy Thursday”. The ten-day period between Ascension and Pentecost is known as Ascensiontide.

For readings and hymn suggestions, see 24 May on the calendar: Ascension Day.