Principal Feast: Thursday, forty days after Easter

The Anglican calendar is ordered by a hierarchy of holy days, each carrying a different weight of observance. At the very top sit the seven Principal Feasts — the highest days of the liturgical year, taking precedence over every other day or observance. They are Easter Day, Christmas Day, Ascension Day, the Day of Pentecost, All Saints’ Day, Trinity Sunday, and the Epiphany, listed on page 688 of the BCP 2019. The Feast of the Ascension stands in this highest company — not as an afterthought between Easter and Pentecost, but as a feast of equal theological weight to any of them. It commemorates the bodily ascension of Jesus Christ into heaven forty days after his resurrection, marking the culmination of his earthly ministry and his exaltation to the right hand of God the Father.

Ascension Day falls on a Thursday by definition — exactly forty days after Easter Sunday, in accordance with Acts 1:3. Because it falls on a weekday, many parishes transfer it to the following Sunday, the Seventh Sunday of Easter, so that the whole congregation can gather. Both observances are legitimate. The feast itself remains on the Thursday; the transfer is a pastoral accommodation, not a liturgical alteration.

The Biblical Event

The Ascension is recorded in two New Testament accounts, both written by Luke. The Gospel of Luke closes with characteristic brevity and wonder: “And he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven.” (Luke 24:50–51, ESV) The detail that he was blessing them when he ascended is not incidental. He does not merely depart; he departs in the act of blessing. The hands raised over his disciples are the last image of the earthly Jesus. And the blessing does not stop when the cloud receives him. It continues.

The Book of Acts provides a fuller account: “And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.” (Acts 1:9, ESV) Both accounts share a deliberate emphasis on the physical, visible nature of the Ascension. He does not simply vanish. He is seen ascending, taken up before the eyes of the disciples. This matters theologically. The Ascension affirms that the same Jesus who was crucified, buried, and raised bodily is now glorified in that same humanity. He does not leave his humanity behind when the cloud receives him. He carries it — and with it, in some mysterious way, the whole of redeemed humanity — into the presence of the Father.

The angels’ word to the astonished disciples confirms the promise of return: “This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:11, ESV) The Ascension is therefore both exaltation and assurance. He is gone from sight, but not from office. He reigns, and he will return. The disciples are not left staring at an empty sky. They are sent back to Jerusalem to wait for the promised Spirit — and to begin the mission that the ascended Lord will conduct through them.

The Theological Significance

Ascension Day celebrates both Christ’s exaltation and his continuing work as the Church’s great high priest. Hebrews holds these two themes together: “We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” (Hebrews 6:19–20, ESV) Christ has not retired from ministry. He has entered the most holy place — the heavenly sanctuary — to intercede perpetually for those who are his. He is no absentee king but an active mediator whose ascended authority is exercised on behalf of his Church at every moment.

Psalm 110:1, quoted more often in the New Testament than any other Old Testament verse, is the scriptural anchor of this theology: “The Lord says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’” (Psalm 110:1, ESV) To sit at the right hand of the Father is not a posture of rest. It is a posture of reign. Paul makes the scope of that reign explicit in Ephesians 1: the ascended Christ is seated “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.” (Ephesians 1:21, ESV) And then Paul draws the implication that changes how the Church understands itself: the Church is his body, “the fullness of him who fills all in all.” (Ephesians 1:23, ESV) We are not a human institution that talks about Jesus. We are the body of the one who fills all in all.

The Ascension also carries a forward-looking, eschatological charge. The feast does not permit a merely backward gaze. It orients the Church toward the horizon, reminding us that history is moving toward a destination. Paul draws the implication for Christian life directly: “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.” (Colossians 3:1, ESV) This is not an invitation to escapism. It is a call to arrange our priorities around what is permanent rather than what is passing — to live in the light of what is actually and permanently true rather than what is immediately visible.

Ascension Day also begins a ten-day period of prayer and expectation leading to Pentecost. After the ascension, the disciples returned to Jerusalem and devoted themselves to prayer. The Church has historically understood this interval as a season of renewed petition — waiting and watching for the promised gift of the Holy Spirit. Many parishes observe this period with intentional prayer gatherings, embodying that original posture of expectant waiting.

The BCP 2019 Collect and Preface

The BCP 2019 appoints the following collect for Ascension Day on page 613: “Almighty God, whose only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven: May our hearts and minds also there ascend, and with him continually dwell; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” The collect is worth reading slowly. It does not ask us to contemplate Christ’s glory from a distance. It asks that our hearts and minds would ascend with him — that we would dwell with him continually, not merely occasionally. The petition is not merely commemorative but transformative: let the Ascension change where we live. The collect for the Sunday after the Ascension, also on page 613, continues this theme, asking that we would not be left comfortless but that the Spirit would be sent to strengthen us and exalt us to the place where our Savior has gone before.

The Preface of the Ascension, found on page 154 of the BCP 2019, is used at the Eucharist on Ascension Day and the Sunday after: “Through your dearly beloved Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who after his most glorious resurrection appeared to his Apostles, and in their sight ascended into heaven to prepare a place for us; that where he is, there we might also ascend, and reign with him in glory.” (BCP 2019, p. 154) The preface holds together the whole arc: resurrection, appearances, ascension, and the promise of our own ascent to reign with him. The Ascension is not the end of the story for the Church. It is the opening of the place we are going. He ascends to prepare it; we will follow.

The propers for Ascension Day are found on page 718 of the BCP 2019. The appointed readings are Acts 1:1–11, Psalm 47 or 110, Ephesians 1:15–23, and Luke 24:44–53 or Mark 16:9–20. These readings together trace the full arc of the feast: Acts 1 gives the narrative account, Psalm 110 gives the royal theology, Ephesians 1 gives the cosmic scope, and Luke 24 closes the Gospel with the ascent itself — in the middle of the blessing, carried up into heaven.

Historical Context and Anglican Practice

The celebration of Ascension Day is ancient, with evidence of its liturgical observance traceable to at least the late fourth century. Augustine of Hippo, writing in the early fifth century, regarded it as a universal feast of the Church derived from apostolic tradition. Its deep roots across East and West testify to the centrality of the Ascension in the early Church’s proclamation of the Gospel.

Anglican worship on Ascension Day characteristically balances joy and solemnity. The feast celebrates Christ’s triumph and exaltation while acknowledging the disciples’ sense of awe as they watched him ascend — all of it overcome by the promise of his return and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Parishes have historically held outdoor processions symbolizing Christ’s journey heavenward. The Paschal candle, lit at Easter, burns throughout Ascensiontide as a sign of his enduring presence. And the Eucharist, always at the heart of Anglican worship, becomes on this day a particularly vivid foretaste of the heavenly banquet over which the ascended and returning Lord himself will preside.

The Ascension also grounds the Church’s mission in a way that is easy to miss. Before departing, Jesus gave his disciples their commission and his promise together: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses… to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8, ESV) The ascended Christ, who now reigns over all rule and authority and power and dominion, has not stepped back from the world. He governs it, and he sends his Spirit-empowered Church into it as his witnesses. The Ascension is not the feast of Christ’s absence. It is the feast of his expanded presence — no longer limited to Galilee and Jerusalem, but filling all things through his body the Church.

Observing This Feast

Because Ascension Day falls on a Thursday, many congregations transfer it to the following Sunday, the Seventh Sunday of Easter. The rubrics on page 689 of the BCP 2019 govern the transfer. Both the Thursday observance and the Sunday transfer are legitimate; the feast itself belongs to the Thursday, and the transfer is a pastoral provision that ensures the full congregation can gather for one of the year’s Principal Feasts.

To observe the feast: pray the collect from BCP 2019, p. 613. Read Acts 1:1–11 and notice the disciples’ question — “will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” — and Jesus’ gentle redirection: it is not for you to know the times, but you will receive power and be my witnesses. Read Ephesians 1:15–23 and sit with Paul’s prayer that the Church would know the immeasurable greatness of his power toward those who believe — the same power that raised Christ and seated him far above all rule and authority. Pray Psalm 110 as the royal theology of the ascended Lord. And let the days between Ascension and Pentecost be days of intentional prayer for the coming of the Spirit — returning to the Upper Room in spirit, waiting and watching for what the ascended Lord has promised to send.

Conclusion

Ascension Day is not the feast of Christ’s disappearance. It is the feast of his exaltation. He does not leave his humanity behind when the cloud receives him; he carries it into the presence of the Father, where he sits at the right hand of God as both reigning King and interceding Priest. The disciples who watched him go were not left desolate. They were sent back to the city with a commission and a promise — and the blessing he spoke over them in the middle of his ascent has never stopped.

The collect prays that our hearts and minds would ascend with him and dwell with him continually. The preface declares that he ascended to prepare a place for us, that where he is, there we might also ascend and reign with him in glory. Ascension Day holds before the Church the destination toward which all of history is moving — and invites us to live now in the light of where we are going. “May our hearts and minds also there ascend, and with him continually dwell.”