The Ascension Soundtrack

When I look at artwork depicting the ascension of Christ, I can’t help but feel something is not quite right

Ascension of Christ by Il Garafalo

about it.  Typically, Jesus stands on a cloud, looking suitably Godly with divine light illuminating his wind-tossed clothing and curiously still hair.  Some of them even show the holes in his hands and feet (one supposes to distinguish the event as the ascension and not the transfiguration). The witnesses on the ground below him portray expressions of awe, reverence and inevitability (you can almost hear the surfer accent as they cry, “Whoa, dude!”). There are hundreds of paintings and relief sculptures like this.

a relief sculpture in ivory circa 400 a.d.

What leaves me baffled—besides the event itself—is the reaction of the witnesses. Imagine yourself as Jesus’ BFF.  Imagine you spent years traveling with this amazing man. You learned from him and maybe even taught him something.  You laughed, cried, raged, and implored with him. You ate, slept, and prayed with him. You witnessed all the miracles he performed. You witnessed all the miracles conferred upon him: his baptism, his transfiguration, his crucifixion, his resurrection.  Even if you weren’t there for all of these events, you would have wanted to be, right?  In short, you would have become an intimate friend and developed a deep bond of friendship and love with this man.  Would you really resign yourself to the inevitable and simply watch with reverence as he rises into the air?  Or would you cry and cling like a child to his parent’s leg on the first day of school?  I imagine deep in my heart, I am broken.  AGAIN! This would be the second time in forty days that my best friend is adamant about leaving me.  I think I’d feel disinclined to blithely stand by and watch it happen and be more inclined to doing some ranting and railing.

But Jesus did warn his friends and followers that while he must leave, he won’t leave them alone (John 14:18). He knew his beloved friends would feel his loss keenly, for don’t you think he felt the loss as well? He promised he would see them soon, and until then, he would send the Holy Spirit to be with them.  The Greek word, ορφνος (phonetically “orphanos”), is translated differently in various versions of the Bible, sometimes “like orphans,” or “disconsolate,” “desolate,” “all alone,” or more commonly “comfortless.”  In 1934, American composer Everett Titcomb composed a motet called I Will Not Leave You Comfortless that uses this text from John 14:18.  This motet was the first ever by an American composer selected for the 1936 English Church Music Festival in London, where 4,000 voices sang the piece.  The music of the anthem is somewhat haunting and expressive of the sense of imminent loss.  In contrast, the renowned English Renaissance composer William Byrd composed his anthem using the same text, but with a more sweetly cheerful expression. 

While these anthems are sometimes used for Ascension Sunday, the text tends to be used more at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirits descends.  Psalm 47, instead is more often the text used for Ascension anthems.  Because of the nature of psalms and anthems, usually only a verse or two is used in a setting.  So it gives composers a variety of text from which to choose to create a fitting musical accompaniment to the glory of Christ's Ascension into heaven.  Generally, anthems using the psalm text for Ascension Day are much more upbeat and joyful—Christ’s ascension into heaven is a miracle, after all.  “O clap your hands all you people” is a text used by many composers: Orlando Gibbons, William Mathias, John Rutter, and many more.  “God has ascended with shouts of joy” is another popular text from the psalm used by such composers as Gerald Finzi, Charles Villiers Stanford (“Coelos Ascendit Hodie”), Jacobus Gallus (“Ascendit Deus”), Spanish Renaissance composer Cristóbal Galán (“Ascendo ad Patrem meum”).  As with the paintings, sculptures and other artwork depicting the Ascension, the variety of anthem picks for Ascension Day are myriad!  This Ascension Sunday at Trinity Church, we will sing an anthem appropriate for the day, an Hallelujah by Georg Philip Telemann.