Holy Communion for Ascension Day: celebrant the Revd Tola Badejo,

First reading: Acts 1. 1-11
Gospel: Luke 24. 44–53

Ascension Day marks a pivotal point both in the very early history of the church and in the church's year. The day's readings look back upon the earthly ministry which Christ has now concluded, but also look forward to the gift of the Holy Spirit, the future ministry of the Apostles, and the Second Coming. Whereas many famous representations of the scene depict Jesus rising vertically into a cloud, sometimes in quite a comical way, some of the earliest are both more naturalistic and more meaningful, showing Jesus stepping from a mountain top into heaven; earth and heaven are thus made clearly distinct, but not necessarily distant from each other. The image above is the upper half of a fresco by Giotto showing Christ's reception by angels; the lower half (in the complete picture attached below) shows the scene from an earthly perspective, with the apostles looking upwards and the angels mentioned in Acts 1. 10-11.

Ascension Day itself falls exactly forty days after Easter, and therefore on a Thursday, but it is traditional to transfer the feast to the Sunday immediately following, as we are doing today.

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