You may have seen paintings of this scene with Jesus standing on a cloud or rising up toward heaven on a golden beam of light as the disciples look on in surprise.

The great thing about this moment is that it highlights the mysterious identity of Christ. As Christians we believe that Jesus Christ was both fully human and fully divine: not half and half, not mostly divine and a little bit human, not all divine disguised as a human. We affirm that Jesus is 100% divine, 100% human.

In the Ascension we see that the baby who was laid in a filthy feeding trough, who grew up in backwater Galilee, who ate with sinners, and who was executed by the state was really God in flesh. We see that the God of the universe took on humanity fully— all the way from a lowly birth to a gruesome death— all to show us what God is really like.

By Caitlin Harper from D365