Short service outline for Ascension Day
Prepare the Space
Draw people's eyes upwards. Hold the service in the garden or park, or decorate the ceiling of the worship space. Medieval Christians used an artificial pair of dangling feet, complete with nail holes.
Call to worship
Jesus, Son of God, who was lifted into heaven,
we worship you with great joy.
Jesus, Son of God, raised 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 age to come,
we worship you with great joy.
Jesus, Son of God, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and whose kingship is one that shall never be destroyed,
we worship you with great joy.
Song such as You are the King of Glory (BPW, HON, MP, RS, SF) or We have come into his house (MP)
Pray
A prayer of praise and confession
God of glory and love and power and possibility,
we celebrate with you the work of Jesus,
his humility and care, his love for the truth,
his commitment to your plan up to and through and beyond his death,
his achievement of reconciling the world to you.
We celebrate his homecoming with you and with all the angels of heaven.
We bend our knees in awe and we lift up our hearts and our hands in worship.
Forgive the lack of worship in our lives.
We are grumpy and self-centred.
We refuse to lift up our eyes to see you
and to open our ears and hear your wonderful commission,
and so our lives fail to speak of you and to serve you.
Today, your day of glory, draw us to yourself.
Accept and heal and empower us.
Draw us into your life and your work
so that we may draw others, too,
to love and praise and live for you.
Amen.
Open the Word
Read Luke 24. 44-53 and any of the following from today's lectionary readings:
Acts 1.1-11
Ephesians 1.15-23
Daniel 7.9-14
Lifted up
This is the day when Jesus finally gets what he deserves; he returns to his home to experience the glory that belongs to him. It is cause for the wildest of celebrations. Our worship today is a faint echo of the welcome Jesus receives in heaven on his return. On Ascension Day in particular, we can let rip with the praise. Let the focus be not on our needs and wants, but on Jesus. It's his day!
Don't get stuck on worrying about 'what actually happened'. This is an important story for Luke – he uses it as a pivot , both to close his Gospel and to begin the story of Acts. He want us to be clear that the work of the bodily, tangible Jesus is complete and the work of the Church is just beginning. It closes the resurrection appearances and sets the scene for the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost and the birth of the Church.
In both of Luke's stories, Jesus commissions the disciples to be his witnesses, beginning from where they are and moving out 'to the ends of the earth'. That commission is ours, too. Today, do not feel it as a burden but receive it as an incredible privilege.
Let today's spirit of self-forgetting worship become a habit, the centre of our personal life and of our life in the church and as the church.
Song such as The golden gates are lifted up (RS) or We want to see Jesus lifted high (MP)
Prayers of intercession
A prayer for the world
As you leave the world, Lord Jesus, you continue to care for it.
You have made us your witnesses,
so bless your Church throughout the world
that your disciples everywhere may be continually telling the Good News,
by word and action.
We pray especially for (this group or church, local churches,
any particular projects or difficulties)...
Bless this neighbourhood and let your kingdom come.
We bring to you its need for healing (...)
and reconciliation (...).
We thank you for those who are working for justice and peace in our area (...)
and ask that we, your commissioned witnesses, may work
both with them and with you for the good of all.
Bless the whole world and reign in it.
We pray for the world's troubled areas (...)
and for places where people don't have the basic necessities of life (...).
We cry out to you against the things that threaten life on this planet (...).
You send us to proclaim the Good News to the ends of the earth, so activate us to be involved and let what we do and say be a blessing for your creation.
Amen.
God of our Lord Jesus Christ,
we ask for a spirit of revelation as we come to know you;
open our eyes to the hope you have called us to,
and the greatness of your power for we who believe,
so that with you at the centre of our lives
we may live and die for you
and bring others into the circle of your love.
Amen.
Song such as Christ is alive! Let Christians sing (BPW, HP, RS) or O for a thousand tongues to sing (widely available)
Closing responses
Holy Jesus, we have seen you and known you.
We know your glory and your love.
We lift up our hearts to bless you.
As you lifted up your hands to bless your disciples
you lift them today to bless us, and in response,
we lift up our hands to bless you.
You have promised us the power of your Spirit
to guide and empower us in the work you call us to.
We lift up our lives to bless you.
A blessing (see 'Be creative', below, for suggestion), or say the Grace.
Be creative
Here are some ideas to help develop thinking around today's theme.
If you are worshipping outdoors, take some silent time to study the sky; let your imagination be drawn to what lies beyond what we can actually see. If you are indoors, use memory as well as imagination and recapture the awe you may have felt in the face of a particularly glorious sky by day or night, at sunrise or sunset. People may be willing to share their memories of such moments – ask them! Acknowledge that the glory is Christ's and offer the sense of awe to him.
Don't confine the songs of praise to the 'hymn slots'. Begin or end the service by asking people to choose the songs that most help them worship God and by singing them together with feeling.
List occasions when people are 'lifted up' – football heroes after victory, new babies who may be paraded round the church after baptism, a bride being carried over the threshold. Which of these have we ourselves experienced? What was the feeling? That is the feeling of Ascension Day.
In the story in Luke, Jesus lifts his hands in blessing. What do you imagine he was saying as he blessed his disciples? What were his very last words to his disciples? Brainstorm briefly, and then collect the phrases people have come up with into a blessing, to be used at the end of the service.