Ascension (& Session) Theology

Assorted Scriptures

Christianity Today Magazine carried an article in May 1998 by Barbara Brown Taylor entitled: "The Day We Were Left Behind."  The article is particularly well written and it has always intrigued me.  Let me quote a small sample:

"Luke ends his gospel by telling us that the disciples returned to Jerusalem with great joy.  But you have to remember that it had just happened for them, that they had just been with Him, and the memory was fresh.  They were still running on adrenaline; you can see it in the pictures.  Almost every church with stained-glass windows has an ascension window tucked away somewhere.  In it, Christ generally hovers in the air, His hands upraised in blessing, while the disciples look up at Him with something between awe and delight.  But He is there with them — He is in the window — and if they went away joyful, then I cannot help but thinking that it was because they thought He would be back in a day or two, next week at the latest.

"Two thousand years later, we tend to see the whole thing a little differently.  We need a new window to describe our own situation: a window with just us in it — no angels, no Jesus, no heavenly light —just us, still waiting, still watching the sky, our faces turned up like empty cups that only one presence can fill.  But He is not present anymore, not the way He used to be.

"Ascension Day is the day the present Lord became absent, which may be why it is the most forgotten feast day of the church year.  Who wants to celebrate being left behind?  Who wants to mark the day that Jesus went out of this world, never to be seen again?  Hungry as we are for the presence of God, the one thing we do not need is a day to remind us of God's absence."

How should we understand the Church's relationship to Christ's Ascension?  Was the Church left behind?