It’s in the creeds, it’s in the Bible, but in both cases it’s just kind of tucked in there. “On the third day he rose from the dead. [And then] He ascended into heaven.” It’s a story told twice, in Luke and in Acts, both written by the same author, but it’s not reported anywhere else. 

There are some other ascensions in the Bible, but none of them are quite like this one, and none of those earlier ascend-ers died first. They ascended before their death. Jesus died, was raised, and now ascends. 

It’s weird! We know he’s not really “up there.” We’ve known that ever since we started sending satellites and people into orbit, and I don’t know anyone who says “I believe in Jesus because of the Ascension.” Nevertheless, the church has called us to believe it, has called this event essential to our faith, and worthy of our reflection and celebration. 

This is because Christ’s Ascension is not his dramatic exit. Jesus is not like Frankie Avalon’s Teen Angel in Grease. Instead, counterintuitively, Christ’s ascension signals not his departure to a better place, but,  in the words of Ephesians, he ascends in order to fill all places, all time, all things with his grace. Jesus did not ascend in order to leave you orphaned. He ascended so he could get a good look at all of us, here, now, and always, and fill our life with his saving presence. 

Maybe it’s because it’s Mother’s Day, but as I pondered the Ascension this week I found myself envisioning Jesus as a giant chicken. Hang with me, here. I’m telling you the truth. I was drawn to the image of Jesus as a mother hen. It’s a biblical image. 

There’s this moment back in Luke 13 during Holy Week, when things were really really bad that Jesus says “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I have desired, longed to gather your children like a hen gathers her brood, her chicks, under her wings.” What an image. What a maternal image, and what a motherly desire to scoop you up and, in the words of another biblical chicken metaphor, “cover you with my pinions,” those super soft downy feathers closest to the heart.” 

This was Christ’s desire in Holy Week. This is God’s own longing, revealed in Jesus Christ, to gather you up like a hen gathers her chicks.. 

And so then I thought, maybe this is what the Ascension actually is. Maybe it’s not so much that Jesus goes “up” but that he covers over in order to gather closer. The ascension is not so much a miracle of transcendence, but a motherly and eternal embrace. 

In churches and cathedrals the Ascended Christ is often depicted high and mighty, the Pantocrator, all-ruling, powerful, and I depend on this image of Christ as gospel; but at the same time, when the person and work of Christ are taken as a whole from incarnation to ascension, we see Christ’s desire is not simply to transcend and rule over, but to cover the cosmos with his grace. 

His power is revealed not only in might, but in weakness. Not only beyond death, but in the midst of death. His power is the power to give his life as a refuge for all those living under the weight and ravenous gaze of Sin and Death. 

So, if Grace ever decides to do some major mural work in here, I’ll be the first in line to ask for Christ the Giant Chicken. 

You laugh, but since as early as the sixth century the iconography of Jesus has included images of Christ the Mother Hen, brooding over her chicks. 

At first it may seem funny, or strange, and you may find this gender-bending imagery fowl… but what I think it signifies is that this really is what God is like, what God desires. This is clearly what Jesus desires, and perhaps in his outstretched arms on the cross, his resurrection on the third day, and his glorious ascension, what is revealed to us is that in the end (which has no end), Jesus gets what he wants! In the Ascension God in Christ indeed gathers all creation under his wings, just as he wanted! 

Christ has ascended into heaven to reveal this, out of an eternal desire to gather, fill, and redeem all things by his motherly grace. 

Hear the Good News: in the end, Jesus gets what he wants, and what he wants is you. It is God’s desire to gather you up like a mother hen gathers her chicks, you cute ones and you odd ones, you frightened and you bold, the sick ones and the sinners, the faithful and the foul. God in Christ longs to abide with you, as you are, and nurture you into the fullness of hen-hood, into the likeness of Christ our mother hen. 

On this Ascension Sunday, this is as much a warning as it is an assurance: Christ our Mother Hen gets what she wants, and what she wants is you.