Glancing Thoughts

The Ascension of Christ

At the start of the story about the ascension, Christ and the apostles are in Jerusalem. After his final talk with them there, Christ is ready to ascend to the Father. In his ascension, he goes directly upwards towards heaven.

One might suppose that there is something childish about the miracle that has him levitating into the sky. He has just vanished on other occasions during his resurrected life. Why does he now not simply vanish, in a dignified way, one might say, and this time not return?

The question contains the answer within it. How would those who loved him know that this time he would not return? Why would those who loved him not still somehow suspect that around any corner he might still after all return again? And even if he said he would not return, it might still be possible for a loving and hopeful heart to expect him around any corner. Watching him ascend slowly into the sky does have a kind of finality about it. And so perhaps Christ protects those who love him from endlessly watching for him through this mode of leaving his resurrected earthly life.

But there is also something important to notice in a little remarked bit of the story: Christ, who is in Jerusalem, walks with his apostles to the Mount of Olives, where Bethany is, and ascends from there.*

Christ’s mode of ascension is straight upwards, and no place on earth is closer than another to the destination when the destination is straight upwards. So there is something odd in Christ’s walking some distance from Jerusalem in order to ascend from some place outside Jerusalem. Why does Christ not simply ascend from where they all are already in Jerusalem?

The answer is Bethany. Christ walks from Jerusalem to ascend from Bethany or some place very near it. It is worth remembering, then, that Bethany is the home of Mary of Bethany.

Is it reasonable to suppose that the resurrected Christ could walk into Bethany or its environs with at least eleven other men and not be noticed there? And is it plausible that, if he were noticed there, someone would not have alerted Mary of Bethany? Finally, it is worth adding that when the apostles walk back to Jerusalem after the ascension and settle down together there, the text says that there were women there with them. Would there be such a group of women that did not include the Mary who loved Christ so intensely?

So it is reasonable to conclude that one part of Christ’s last act on earth was to make sure that he consoled and took his leave of a woman in Bethany whose heart cleaved to him.

Eleonore Stump

**From Saint Louis University