One of the weirdest days of the church year is Ascension of the Lord. Forty days after Easter Jesus puts on his jetpack and heads off for heaven.
Carl Sagan quipped that if Jesus were traveling at the speed of light even after 2000 years he still would not have left the Milky Way.
To commemorate his heavenly flight, here is Jesus on a pole.
And away he goes!
I can just picture all the conservative Christians praying for you after they see this post. Most will be praying you get smote by Jet-Pak Jesus.
ReplyDeleteor run out of town on a Jesus pole.
ReplyDeleteYes, but what would Jesus do?
ReplyDeleteI think he'd agree smiling at what we don't understand beats dourly feigned piety every time!
Thanks, Tim. A smile is the only hope for this blasphemer.
ReplyDeleteNah there are lots of weirder days in the church calendar.
ReplyDelete1. Ordinary days. What exactly are ordinary days? Does that mean that some days are extraordinary days in comparison? Does God somehow bless or create days differently?
2. All Hallows Eve. We celebrate the day before All Saints Day (a day I think was meant for all the saints who didn't have special days of their own but to a reader of the NT like me it would mean all saints, all those made holy) Oops got a little carried away there. We celebrate the day before All Saints Day today by dressing up and begging for candy and in the past doing the opposite of being holy.
3. Fat Tuesday - a day to commit the sin of gluttony so that one can repent of that (and other sins) the next 40 days.
4. Boxing day. A British custom which actually makes some sense. Don't give presents on Christmas. Give them the day after. It took me a long time to find this out. Originally I thought Dec. 26 was a day for local boxing matches.
5. The Assumption of Mary. While I was relieved to discover this wasn't about the mother of Jesus assuming anything (because you know what one who assumes does) I was a bit disturbed to discover that it meant that Mary didn't die but went directly to heaven. Does this mean Mary ascended into heaven too? I missed this somehow in the Bible.
6. The Immaculate Conception. OK, so I'm picking on our Catholic sisters and brothers (and not just the monks and the nuns) here. Mary was born sinless? I think this was so that Jesus wouldn't be born with original sin. But what about Mary's mother and father? If they sinned then Mary had original sin, so they must have been immaculately conceived and on back to Adam and Eve?
7. Palm Sunday/Passion Sunday. I'm not quite sure when the two were combined. Maybe other denominations had done this for a long time but Palm Sunday was Palm Sunday when I was young. Isn't Good Friday enough for Passion? Or are we worried that no one comes to Good Friday services any more so we have to talk about Good Friday on Palm Sunday?
8. I don't have my Presbyterian Planning Calendar in front of me but I am sure there are just as many weird days among Presbyterians as well. Like Presbytery meeting days.
Got a bit carried away here, didn't I? :)
Just remembered a Presbyterian calendar extraordinary day: Wills Emphasis Sunday. I appreciate the fact that there is no apostrophe between the last l and the s in Wills. I don't know why we should emphasize someone named Will. But this is the Sunday when we remind all our members to have wills? Which actually is a good idea. It prevents those family fights about the china and the silver. But I suspect it also is to remind members name the church in their will and so to leave at least part of their money to the church.
ReplyDeleteThose are interesting days. But I have to say for the sheer sake of weirdness (defined by me as simply untranslatable from an earlier age to the present) you can't beat jet-pak jesus.
ReplyDeleteWell yes, I suppose we Presbyterians are silly enough on our own without any help.
ReplyDeleteStill, the Catholics make it so easy to laugh huh? Like in the 1870s when the Pope said infallibly that the Pope is infallible.
Short rant: what I really don't like is the emphasis on secular holidays being church holidays. Mothers' Day is OK by me. So is Fathers' Day. But the 4th of July? And worse, Thanksgiving? If the Native Americans gave thanks they learned real quick that these new white folks we a threat to life and limb. End of rant.