When I was a kid, one of my favorite shows on television was The Jeffersons. I have no idea why I loved it so much. When I read this week’s description of the Ascension of Jesus as told in Acts, the theme song from that show started playing in my head. Do you remember that theme song?
Well we're movin' on up
To the east side
To a deluxe apartment in the sky
Movin' on up
To the east side
We finally got a piece of the pie
And well, it’s ridiculous, but it seems to me a pretty accurate description of what’s happening in this story. Jesus is indeed movin’ on up to a deluxe apartment in the sky. Seriously though, when I read a scripture and something like this pops into my head, it’s almost always for a reason. (And that reason is usually the Holy Spirit nudging me, so I try to listen).
So let us consider The Jeffersons for a moment. This television show ran in the late seventies/early 80s and featured an upwardly mobile black family, and also included television’s first interracial couple. The show tackled many issues we’re still discussing in 2023. It discussed racism, divorce, alcoholism, adult literacy, gun control, and even gender identity (which it explored in episode 3 of Season 4) (Grove). At the center of it all was George Jefferson, who had met with quite a bit of success in his dry cleaning business and could afford to move his family from Queens to a luxury apartment on the East Side of Manhattan. This was a story about the American dream; about social mobility, and about how one man challenged the social norms for his time in order to make life better for his family.
Now I’m not trying to equate George Jefferson and Jesus, because that would be a stretch. George was a capitalist who rarely backed down from that unless he or his family was at risk. Everything George did was about survival in a society that didn’t think he belonged. And that? That does sound a little bit like Jesus.
So that gets me back to Jesus and his moment of ascension. Today is Ascension Sunday in the liturgical calendar. This day marks the end of Eastertide. Next Sunday we will celebrate Pentecost. Traditionally, Ascension is celebrated on the 40th day of Easter because in Acts, Jesus comes back after the resurrection and hangs out with the Disciples in one form or another for forty days before ascending to Heaven to be with God.
The literal ascension is discussed primarily in Luke and Acts, which we know were written by the same author. There is a one-sentence mention of it in Mark, but it occurs at the end of Mark in the section that is largely considered by scholars to be a later addition to that Gospel. In John, the description is much fuzzier and is discussed in Jesus’ own words as something that will happen but is never described. And there are a few additional descriptions in the letters- particularly Romans, Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, Timothy, and 1 Peter- but these do not have the details that we get in the accounts in Luke and Acts. In some ways this is problematic, right? We’ve discussed before that the more something appears in multiple gospels the more likely it was to have happened as described. So it gets tricky with the ascension because we only have one gospel writer describing it in any detail even if three of the Gospels agree that it happened.
But this concept has been central to the faith of Christians for centuries, so much so that it has a feast day, appears in various faith creeds, and is understood to be the moment when Jesus finally goes to heaven and the disciples and followers are left to wait for the arrival of the holy spirit. (Spoiler alert, that’s next week). And it’s not a concept that only applies to Jesus. We’ve got several ascension stories in the Biblical narrative. We have Enoch, the son of Cain, who according to Genesis lived 365 years and was taken away by God to continue walking with God in heaven (aka, he didn’t die). We also have the story of Elijah from 2 Kings where he was carried to heaven in a Chariot of Fire (but also didn’t die).
But the entire point of this episode, and of this day in the calendar, is to set up the arrival of the Holy Spirit. This is, I think, entirely the point. If Jesus sticks around and keeps doing all the work, the disciples and the other followers will have no motivation to do anything themselves. Jesus has to move on in order for the work to continue and expand.
Now, I don’t believe for a moment that the reason that we have this moment of ascension is to give us a “phone-a-friend” connection to God. For some reason, unless Jesus is sitting beside God we can’t talk to God. That makes zero sense. Jesus taught the disciples how to pray; I don’t think that lesson gets reversed with the ascension and we still pray the prayer he taught. No, I sincerely believe the ascension is about empowerment. And I think that’s what’s happening when the two gleaming men in white tell the disciples to move on and get busy. These two figures say “Why are you looking for Jesus, go back and get to work.” And that’s what the disciples do.
This is a call to action, a reminder, and a wake-up call that they need to move on to the next phase of ministry. It is time to get ready for what is coming next. And that’s what the disciples did- they went back to Jerusalem and when back to where they had been staying and were “constantly devoting themselves to prayer.” They were getting ready for what was going to happen next, the thing they had been promised: the arrival of the holy spirit. And, to be clear, it wasn’t just the disciples- it was “Certain women including Mary the mother of Jesus as well as his brothers.” We are being set up to understand that the arrival of the Holy Spirit is not for the disciples alone, but for all who believed.
“If we continue reading Acts 1, we discover that this listing includes only a portion of the community. In verse 15, we read that Peter stood up among the believers, a crowd of about a hundred and twenty. After noting the death of Judas, he invites the community to choose from among their group “one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John . . .” (Acts 1:21-22). Casting lots they chose Matthias. He will join the apostolic band. His moment in the sun is short as Matthias will not appear in the story again. At least not in the biblical story. Of course, as we read through the Book of Acts, only Peter, John, and James the brother of Jesus will appear again in the story. With the choosing of Matthias to replace Judas, the community is ready to welcome the Holy Spirit. There’s nothing left to do but wait for the one who will empower them to pursue this ministry.”(Cornwall).
And somehow, bizarrely, that brings me back to George Jefferson. George doesn’t leave his neighborhood in Queens and then continually go back there to keep working or helping other people get to “move on up.” He instead lives as an example of what success and upward mobility can look like. He demonstrates the possibility and then moves out of the way. He demonstrates again and again that the “dominant culture is too rigid in its standards and cultural beliefs, but it is not the dominant culture who is forced to yield.”(Rhym 63). This is what the disciples will face in the days, weeks, and months following the ascension and Pentecost. They will face again and again a dominant culture that refuses to yield- to the point that believers will be murdered, arrested, and exiled.
Jesus is trying to set the disciples up for success in the times to come. By getting out of the way and empowering them to move forward with the mission, He is giving them the tools they need to fight the dominant culture and bring hope and change to those who were willing to listen. And that empowerment will begin in a new way with the arrival of the Holy Spirit, which we will celebrate next week with Pentecost.
Jesus was movin’ on up indeed- movin’ on up so the disciples could move on with the work and ministry he had started.