In Christianity there are 7 main events; creation, the fall, the birth of Christ, the Crucifixion of Christ, the The resurrection of Christ, the ascension of Christ and the return of Christ.
Of course there are hundreds of events just in the bible and thousands more since but to get the story that Christianity is built to preserve it is those seven that you can’t do without. Skip one and the story doesn’t make sense. Add 8, 9, and 10 and you get a better picture of the story but still the same frame and outline.
These seven events make up the centrality of the bible as it pertains to the Christian faith. Christians are hesitant to talk about events 1 and 2 because of science and Darwin. Christians will talk about them though. There has been a lot written on these two events and how it could or couldn’t fit with scientific explanation but it’s not something that is talked about since it invites debate from what many consider the more important topics such as events 4 and 5; the crucifixion and the resurrection and event 3 around the end of December every year.
Christians will talk about the birth of Christ and the crucifixion. Christians will talk about the resurrection of Christ but less than the crucifixion and birth. And some Christians will talk about event 7, the return of Christ but very little compared to talking about events leading up to the return of Christ and compared to talking about events 1, 2, 3, and 4; the birth and crucifixion and creation and the fall.
My ranking of how much Christians talk and hear pastors talking about the main events of the bible goes like this
The crucifixion - event #4
The resurrection - event #5
The birth of Christ - event #3
These are the three events that get talked about the most. It is a big drop off from 3 to 4.
- The fall - event #2
People are open to the idea that the world is messed up and something has gone horribly wrong.
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The return of Christ - event #7
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Creation - event #1
The return of Christ and creation get talked a lot in some flavors of Christianity but there has always been a hesitancy to talk about the return of Christ in the church amongst leadership since people are given to crazy ideas after reading the last book in the bible, Revelation.
You could easily flip 5 and 6 though depending on the tradition or church.
And bringing up last place is
- The ascension of Christ - event #5
What Christians absolutely do not talk about is the ascension of Christ. I’ve listened to thousands of Christian sermons and I can’t recall ever hearing a sermon that focused on the ascension of Christ. The ascension gets mentioned in the sermon about the crucifixion but just in passing. Like saying to the audience “hey it turned out great because Jesus rose from the dead and went to heaven.”
All the bible studies and songs and books? I can’t recall the ascension ever being a featured part.
The ascension is an afterthought inside the church. I’m sure someone out there is making a big deal of the ascension but they haven’t made it big by saying it’s a big deal.
And the ascension of Christ is in all of the important creeds of the church. No one is denying it unless they deny other parts of the story but they ain’t talking about it either.
Why?
Christians have debated which of these 7 events “literally” happened or happened as described in the bible. Most Christians agree that the events mentioned in the New Testament as historical basically happened as described.
Most Christians believe creation was much more complicated and longer than 6 24 hour days but some do but even those people wouldn’t say that the short passage in Genesis describes the whole event. It was a short but accurate summary.
The return of Christ is interpreted in all sorts of ways from literal to you name it. But the ascension of Christ has to be a real thing or else Christianity has a weird problem, that being “where is Jesus?”
“well he is in heaven”
how did you he get there?
“that’s not something we talk about.”
Why?
Because of all the things Christians believe in the belief that a man floated up to heaven through space may be the most ridiculous sounding. Jesus went to space and he didn’t even need a rocket? Did he take oxygen with him? Did he ride in a classic convertible like in Grease?
Or blast off in ice skates like Will Ferrel and Jon Heder’s characters in Blade’s of Glory.
Or the like in the weird ending to 2001: A Space Odyssey
There are other movies and stories where the character dies and then we see or are told that their spirit ascended. For instance, Hercules was said to have ascended to Mt Olympia after being burned.
Jesus did it while still alive and a bunch of people watched him though. Those people started the church and Christianity. They were known as “followers of the way” which sounds way cooler than “Christians” which means little Christ but you win some and you lose some.
The ascension is described here in Mark
After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. They went out and proclaimed everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through the accompanying signs.
And in Luke
Then Jesus led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands, he blessed them. Now during the blessing he departed and was taken up into heaven. So they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple courts blessing God.
And the most famous recounting in Acts
After he had said this, while they were watching, he was lifted up and a cloud hid him from their sight. As they were still staring into the sky while he was going, suddenly two men in white clothing stood near them and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking up into the sky? This same Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come back in the same way you saw him go into heaven.”
So it sounds like Jesus went up into a cloud and then no one could see him anymore. Mark tells us he went to the right hand of God so that makes it feel like “Jesus went to outer space man.” he could have disappeared from human view and then ended up there without blasting into space. But I kind of like the blasting through space idea so I don’t want to rule it out completely.
But before Jesus ascended to heaven we have some odd verses that show us Jesus isn’t the same type of person as he was before his death. It wasn’t like Jesus was a totally normal person who never showed signs of special powers before he ascended.
For instance, Peter and another disciple walked with a man for miles and ate dinner with him before recognizing that the man was Jesus. As soon as they realized this Jesus disappeared. He was “poof” gone.
Mary Magdalene didn’t recognize the man she was talking to in the garden where Jesus was buried was Jesus. Jesus then told her not to “cling to him because he had not yet ascended.
Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).
Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
It sounds like Jesus didn’t want to be touched in the condition his body was in at that time.
Later Jesus appears suddenly in a room where the disciples had the doors locked. Either Jesus walks through solid objects or he can suddenly appear places or both. And yet Jesus eats in front of the disciples which tells us he could take a solid form, he wasn’t simply a ghost but something else. A being that could walk, talk, change appearance, eat, appear in rooms with locked doors and remember people from his earlier life.
This was the person who ascended into heaven with a small crowd around. This is the person who went into the clouds, was gone, and is “at the right have of the father.”
In his book Turing’s Cathedral, George Dyson, son of famed physicist Freeman Dyson tells a story about walking home with his dad at the Institute for Advanced Studies. In it, George is 5 years old and walking on a sidewalk with his father and he sees a broken fan belt from a car in the road. George, being the curious sort, asked his dad what the thing laying in the road was.
“it’s a piece of the sun” said Freeman.