Ascension and Time
I read a presentation by LeRon Shults (theologian of growing stature from Agder University in Normway) yesterday. This is the first thing I've read by him. It was on contemporary cosmology and the parousia. The thrust of his paper was well received, although I felt the paper itself kinda fluffy. The thrust: the parousia must be reconsidered in light of contemporary cosmology (study of the universe). This, of course, involves considering space and time. Shults' suggestion was to reconsider what "presence with," "being for" (literally parousia, the Greek word we translate "second coming") might mean in a universe with relative space and time.
This got me thinking about the doctrine of the ascension. In my presentation to the CETA last year, I suggested a paradoxical consideration of the absence and presence of Christ. I suggest Christ is absent from the church, via the ascension, but present via the Eucharist and baptism. I believe that Shults' suggestion to reconsider the parousia helps me make sense of this paradox. Here's how: What if the ascension doesn't just raise Christ above the powers (as the political doctrine it is suggests), but also raises him ahead in time? If time and space are relative, could the ascension be the act that thrusts Christ through time? This would mean that we are "catching up" via our temporal limitations, to which he is no longer subject. This means that Christ is absent--he is in the future, looking back at us. However, the story of Christ is present now because he traversed through time because of the ascension. It is not that he "skips ahead" from 33 A.D. to the point of his revealed presence (say, 3213 A.D.). Rather, he moved through all time in a way that we as yet cannot. So, it makes sense to say that Christ is present now from our perspective, but not in a full way. We sense his presence most fully in the times that he "slowed" his progress through time to nourish us in communion and wash us in baptism. Is he present? Yes, from our perspective. Is he absent? Yes, from his perspective. Ironically, part of the hope of the gospel is that in the hardest times, our life is "hidden with Christ in God" (Col. 3:3): the absent Christ is our safety and the present Christ is our comfort. Perhaps a good catch phrase for this position is to say, "Christ has been now before."
Thoughts?
This got me thinking about the doctrine of the ascension. In my presentation to the CETA last year, I suggested a paradoxical consideration of the absence and presence of Christ. I suggest Christ is absent from the church, via the ascension, but present via the Eucharist and baptism. I believe that Shults' suggestion to reconsider the parousia helps me make sense of this paradox. Here's how: What if the ascension doesn't just raise Christ above the powers (as the political doctrine it is suggests), but also raises him ahead in time? If time and space are relative, could the ascension be the act that thrusts Christ through time? This would mean that we are "catching up" via our temporal limitations, to which he is no longer subject. This means that Christ is absent--he is in the future, looking back at us. However, the story of Christ is present now because he traversed through time because of the ascension. It is not that he "skips ahead" from 33 A.D. to the point of his revealed presence (say, 3213 A.D.). Rather, he moved through all time in a way that we as yet cannot. So, it makes sense to say that Christ is present now from our perspective, but not in a full way. We sense his presence most fully in the times that he "slowed" his progress through time to nourish us in communion and wash us in baptism. Is he present? Yes, from our perspective. Is he absent? Yes, from his perspective. Ironically, part of the hope of the gospel is that in the hardest times, our life is "hidden with Christ in God" (Col. 3:3): the absent Christ is our safety and the present Christ is our comfort. Perhaps a good catch phrase for this position is to say, "Christ has been now before."
Thoughts?
posted by Aaron Perry at
10:09 AM
1 Comments:
we just chatted about this for a bit, but i wanted to comment on here that I think this is a neat concept to think of visually and does seem to fit with some verses that came to mind when i read your post. God bless
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