What King Charles's and the Christ's ascensions have in common
King Charles III is no messiah, but he could model the Way, writes George Pitcher
The UK still reverberates to the pageantry and celebration of King Charles III’s coronation a couple of weeks ago, though his ascension to the throne occurred at the moment of his mother’s passing last September. Meanwhile, this week, 40 days after Easter, the Church celebrates the Ascension of the risen Christ to the kingdom of heaven.
Two very different kinds of ascension. King Charles would, by all accounts, not court any comparison between his enthronement and that of the King of Kings, either through ancient divine right or any other form of self-deification. But there are some similarities and contrasts that are helpful to a Christian understanding of the Ascension.
The weight of exegesis on Christ’s Ascension rests on his defeat of sin and death, and a kind of triumphant floating away on a cloud. And I don’t mean to add to that consensus. Rather, I simply intend to offer three slightly more radical observations with regard to the nature of both mortal and divine ascension.
The first is the apparent contrast between the pride of the King’s ascension and the humility of the Christ’s. The former arises from the pomp and circumstance of Charles’s accession compared with the latter being a consequence of the humiliation of the cross.
Servant king
So far, so different. However, our worldly King’s ascension is meant to be in service to his people, in much the same way as the Servant King ascends to his father. At God’s right hand, the Christ intercedes on our behalf. It’s a model that Charles is called to emulate in interceding in the worldly management of our affairs by government.
He has no formal constitutional role in that regard, but he has an advisory capacity with the prime minister and Charles should be expected to exercise it in the best interests of his subjects. The best interests of his disciples is bought with the blood of Christ, but that’s also servant-kingship – a creed that Charles promised to defend at his coronation.
Transactional
A second observation is that the nature of both worldly and sacred ascensions is transactional. Charles’s coronation is a contract of service with his people. By contrast, the love of God is not transactional – it doesn’t depend on what we do, or how we behave or even on the depth or existence of our faith. It’s a gift, freely given. That’s the nature of grace.
Where the transactional does occur in the Ascension of the Christ is in the exchange that it makes with the world. The Christ is risen in bodily form and therefore has a material and geographical locus. In order for God to inhabit the world as spirit, that body has to return whence it came, releasing the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, to occupy the whole world.
That’s a contract with God’s people. The body of Christ ascends; the gift of the Holy Spirit descends. It’s like an earthly king promising to serve his subjects at his enthronement, rather than demanding to be served.
Human consciousness
Finally, ascension is also to do with consciousness, specifically the raising of it. The Christ is raised from the dead and then is raised in the Ascension. The highest state of human consciousness is to be with God, because there can be no higher mind than the one that makes the universe.
The Christ points the way to this divine consciousness – and leads that way, by virtue of being “the way, the truth and the life.” And the promise is that anyone can follow.
To take that route is to understand in full, face to face with the divine. It’s why the Christ describes himself as being fully integrated with God – and he with us: “On that day you will know that I am in My Father and you are in me and I am in you.”
Teaching role
This is a level of consciousness to which the Christian human aspires and is to be achieved through our own ascensions. It’s a bit of a push to suggest that a king’s coronation emulates or mirrors this process of raised consciousness, but it is at least within the range of possibilities that a mortal king called to serve rather than be served could have a teaching role in the faith that he is nominally called to defend.
So in servant ministry, in contractual obligation with the people and in aspiration to a raised human consciousness in communion with Christ, the ascension to a worldly throne is meant to resonate or reflect the Ascension to the throne of thrones.
And that is meant to be a cause for joy. It’s why, instinctively, the crowds celebrating a coronation will speak of their shared joy in doing so. Ascension to the throne of Britain might be seen as a microcosm for our ascensions to heaven.
That’s why we share the fun of the journey. You might even say it’s quite a lark, ascending…
George Pitcher is a visiting fellow at the LSE and an Anglican priest