Ascension Day: A Reflection from Emily Rutledge

A hidden holy day, stuck right there on a Thursday, Ascension Day is not the most celebrated of holidays in The Church.

It's an odd one for many, the risen Christ gets sucked up into heaven (my words, clearly) after spending 40 days with his friends post-resurrection.  He has spent his time healing the trauma of the crucifixion and preparing them for ministry and then leaves them with the promise that the Holy Spirit will be coming.  The Holy Spirit, something they do not yet understand but Christ promises is even better than they can imagine.  I, personally, would be skeptical.  And, once again, they are left to wait.  We know that ten more days pass and then the Holy Spirit does, indeed, arrive and The Church is born.

My Episcopal school in Hawaii, St. Andrew's Priory, was founded on Ascension Day. It  was celebrated as if it was the most important holiday there was.  Christmas and Easter paled in comparison.  It was shocking to me upon graduation that the rest of the world did not celebrate with the enthusiasm that we did.  Junior girls stayed up all night Ascension Eve to decorate the historic coral cross that our school was built around as a gift to the graduating senior class.  There was then an all-school Eucharist, a ceremony where the junior and senior classes sang to each other, and a basic handing off of the school from one class to the next.  Please remember that we were

A.  All teenage girls
B.  From a liturgical tradition
C.  Founded by missionaries alongside a monarchy

Drama and ritual were deep rooted.

While high school seniors are in no way God, they merely think they are, the symbolic leaving and entrusting of a community mirrored that of Christ.

Ascension Day was the Apostles first day of doing ministry without Christ.  While we consider Pentecost the birthday of The Church, Ascension Day can be considered the beginning of labor. Unsure of how the Holy Spirit would be manifested, unaware of the details of what lay ahead, followers of Christ had to move forward, knowing things would never be as they once were.  Christ promised that the best was still to come.

This Ascension Day let's join with the apostles in the hard labor of hope and anticipation in the good that is yet to come. 

Happy Ascension Day!