Sunday after the Ascension (1st Ecumenical Council)
There was recently a piece in my daily newspaper on the subject of recent developments in mathematics. The details were far too obscure for me, but what it seemed to be about was some recent research into time and space. Of course, we are all familiar with the daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly cycles in time, but this seemed to be at the other end of the scale, and in a different dimension.
Last Thursday was the feast of the Ascension, which marks the conclusion of the ministry of Jesus on earth, and his ascension into heaven, into the presence of his Father. As he was received into the cloud he passed into another dimension in space and time – entirely beyond human knowledge and imagination. He passed through a portal, a doorway into this ultimate dimension that we call “heaven”.
The Crucifixion of Jesus was followed, as we know, on the third day by his Resurrection, and this was followed by a number of so-called “Resurrection appearances”. Some of these are recorded in the Gospels. Some are not. Two which were not are referred to by St Paul. Writing on the subject he refers to an occasion, not recorded in the gospels, when he “appeared to five hundred brethren at once”. He also writes of his final and exceptional appearance, some time after his ascension, on the road to Damascus, to Paul himself. This Paul saw as his personal call to be an apostle.
Last Thursday marked Jesus’s final appearance in the immediate post-Resurrection series, and it is clear from the Gospel accounts that this event marked the completion of one phase, and left the Apostles looking forward to the next, ten days later, the coming of the Holy Spirit.
We earth-bound creatures find ourselves in a three dimensional universe. That is the background to our life-experience and we find it very difficult to imagine anything beyond this. Yet, to return to where I began, some scientists and mathematicians propose not only a fourth dimension, but a universe of many dimensions.
I don’t understand the science or the mathematics, but it does seem to me that such theories and ideas may help to explain what lies behind certain Biblical events – such as the Resurrection, such as the Ascension, such as the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
This does not mean that they help us to understand, or that they give us scientific information. They do not, but surely Shakespeare wrote the truth when, four hundred years ago, in his play Hamlet, he wrote that “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy.”
It has been said that people only believe in heaven because they are afraid of death. That seems to be a very sweeping statement. After all the Christian view has a place not only for heaven, but also for hell, as the final destination of the wicked after the Last Judgement.
What we are to understand from our Gospel readings from Pascha to Pentecost is that there is, in fact, another dimension – neither placed above, nor beneath our assumed three dimensional universe, but perhaps superimposed, or alongside it – a dimension which, although not obvious to us, truly exists, and with which we are able to communicate in prayer.
So after his Resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples, as we have seen, on a number of occasions. The first was to Mary Magdalene in the Garden. She fell at his feet and wanted to kiss them, but Jesus forbade her because he had “not yet ascended to his Father”. That evening he appeared in the Upper Room to his disciples, although Thomas was not there. When the disciples told Thomas, he refused to believe.
The following week he appeared again to all the disciples, including Thomas. He called Thomas over to him and invited him to put his finger into the nail wounds, and his hand into his side, where it had been pierced by the centurion’s spear. That was enough. Thomas not only believed, but fell on his face with the words, “My Lord, and my God”. Was that wishful thinking? I don’t think so. It was true belief – conviction.
During this period, one minute Jesus was there, among them, the next he was gone. And yet this was a very special and limited time. It was not to be always like this. The time was coming when they would no longer see him as they had done before.
This morning’s Gospel is read as a comment on the Ascension. In fact, in the Fourth Gospel it is recorded at the Last Supper, but it looks forward exactly to the time in which we find ourselves now.
Some people have called this the Lord’s High Priestly Prayer. Jesus prays that the Father may “glorify his Son, that the Son may glorify him, since the Father has given the Son the power to give eternal life to all whom he has given him”.
This prayer, although set in historic time is clearly intended to reflect the prayer that Jesus continually prays before his Father in that place that we call heaven but which, as I suggested earlier, is not a place at all, as we understand the word “place” in three dimensional terms. It is a place which, in one sense is far away but, in another sense, very near to us.
This prayer is too complicated to detail in a few minutes, but Jesus is praying for his disciples in all the trials and challenges that they will face when he has gone from them because “now I am coming to thee (his Father), but these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.”