ONCE the Sabbath had passed, Mary Magdalene and other women came to the tomb where Jesus had been buried. They found it empty, except for a young man who gave them the news that Jesus had risen.

Mark says they were so terrified that they fled and told no one. The other evangelists speak of them running to tell the Disciples. And then there followed a time during which the Disciples met Jesus. They were able to touch Him, talk to Him, and eat with Him. But He had not simply returned to them. He had truly died on the cross. Now He had been raised to new life. This condition is not described but is indicated by their sometimes failing to recognise Him or by His appearing in their midst unexpectedly, sometimes even in spite of the doors being locked.

According to the Acts of the Apostles, the Disciples’ experience of these meetings with the risen Jesus lasted for 40 days. Then they stopped. He was taken from them. He ascended into Heaven. It is the feast that was celebrated on Thursday, 40 days after Easter. That is how the story is usually told — but it is not the only version.

The author of the Acts of the Apostles, whom we call Luke, is also recognised generally as the author of the third Gospel. There, however, he tells the story differently.

In his Gospel Luke says that Mary Magdalene and the women run from the tomb to the Apostles, who dismiss their news as an idle tale — except for Peter, who goes to see the tomb himself and comes away amazed. Then we are told “that very day” two Disciples on the road to Emmaus meet a traveller who falls in with them, talks with them, whom they invite for a meal, and whom during the meal they come to recognise as Jesus. He vanishes from their sight. They return to Jerusalem “that same hour” and tell the Apostles what has happened. And while they are talking Jesus appears among them, speaks to them, invites them to touch Him, eats some fish, instructs them, leads them out to Bethany, and there is lifted from their sight. He ascends into Heaven. And it is Easter Sunday night.

Were there appearances throughout 40 days or only on a single day?

One clue to the answer lies in the number of days mentioned — 40. Numbers in Scripture are usually significant. And so here. It is no coincidence that the Chosen People wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, that Moses was up the mountain for 40 days and 40 nights, or that this was the time that Elijah journeyed to Mount Horeb, or that Jesus spent in the wilderness before His ministry began.

“Forty” indicates less a length of time, more a privileged time. What is the significance of this time? What is the ascension of the risen Jesus meant to teach us?

Resurrection and ascension should not be divided. They indicate aspects of the same profound reality. The Resurrection signals Jesus’s victory over sin and death, while His ascension points to the glory at the heart of his triumph. “Glory” is like a code word for the new life, hitherto unimagined, which His resurrection revealed. So Jesus’s ascension is not so much another episode in a sequence of temporal events — first He died, then He rose, then He ascended — as a way of proclaiming that His victory over death breaks through and goes beyond the confines of time and space. It reminds us of another dimension, of something transcendent.

If everything is trapped within the temporal, then once it is over, it is finished. If what exists has value only while it lasts, then everything, however precious, is ultimately worthless. Time will come to an end.

But many people have an instinct for the transcendent, not only those who are religious. Those who love deeply, especially when the beloved has been lost, whether by separation or death, know that love endures. It is more than a memory, more than a vital influence in our lives. It is an abiding reality, beyond time and eternal.

The ascension of Jesus proclaims that transcendence and reminds us of our hope and our joy.

Monsignor Roderick Strange is the Rector of the Pontifical Beda College, Rome