Above: Icon of the Ascension of Christ
Image in the Public Domain
Enthronement
MAY 18, 2023
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According to the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship (ILCW) Lectionary (1973), as contained in the Lutheran Book of Worship (1978) and Lutheran Worship (1982)
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Acts 1:1-11
Psalm 110
Ephesians 1:16-23
Luke 24:44-53
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Almighty God, your only Son was taken up into heaven
and in power intercedes for us.
May we also come into your presence
and live forever in your glory;
through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever. Amen.
—Lutheran Book of Worship (1978), 22
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Grant, we pray, almighty God,
that even as we believe your only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,
to have ascended into heaven,
so may also in heart and mind ascend and continually
dwell there with him;
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever. Amen.
—Lutheran Worship (1982), 55-56
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Luke-Acts is a composite work. Given this fact, the discrepancy in the timing of the Ascension confuses me. Luke 24 places the Ascension on the same day as the Resurrection. Yet Acts 1 times it forty days after the Resurrection and ten days before Pentecost. O, well.
By the 300s, the Feast of the Ascension our Lord, set forty days after Easter Day, was commonplace. St. Augustine of Hippo wrote that churches
all over the world
celebrated the feast.
I understand the Ascension as theological poetry, not theological prose, because of science. I accept that, one day, Jesus was present with his Apostles until he left. Given cultural and theological assumptions of the time, we have the metaphor of ascension. May we–you, O reader, and I–not become lost in technical details.
The Feast of the Ascension is about enthronement–of Jesus, mainly. It is about the enthronement of humanity itself. To quote St. John Chrysostom:
Our very nature…is enthroned today high above all cherubim.
Happy Ascension Day!
KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR
APRIL 23, 2022 COMMON ERA
SATURDAY IN EASTER WEEK
THE FEAST OF TOYOHIKO KAGAWA, RENEWER OF SOCIETY AND PROPHETIC WITNESS IN JAPAN
THE FEAST OF MARTIN RINCKART, GERMAN LUTHERAN MINISTER AND HYMN WRITER
THE FEAST OF SAINT TERESA MARIA OF THE CROSS, FOUNDER OF THE CARMELITE SISTERS OF SAINT TERESA OF FLORENCE
THE FEAST OF WALTER RUSSELL BOWIE, EPISCOPAL PRIEST, SEMINARY PROFESSOR, AND HYMN WRITER
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Link to the corresponding post at BLOGA THEOLOGICA
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LENTEN AND EASTER DEVOTIONS 
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