The Ascension of Our Lord

Activities for the Whole Family:

Have a family adventure to help you imagine the disciples’ experience when our Lord ascended into heaven! Go on a family picnic, somewhere high (a hilltop would be ideal). While you’re eating, talk about the Ascension and imagine that you are the disciples, reunited with your Lord after the difficult time of His death and the joy of His resurrection. How would it feel to have Him in your midst again? If He invited you to the top of the hill like this, would you go with Him? What if He began to talk: would you listen? If He began to tell you He would be leaving, how would you feel about that? When He suddenly began to float up from the ground and keep rising into the sky, right in front of you, what would you think? (You might demonstrate this with a face “of Christ” drawn on a helium balloon attached to a really long string – so that you could eventually retrieve it – or with a small plastic toy “Christ” taped to a kite that flies high.) And what was it like when there were suddenly two men standing among you, telling you that Jesus will come back again someday? What would you think? What do you suppose the disciples talked about as they went back to Jerusalem? Discuss this, and the fact that we are still waiting for Christ to come again, as you pack up and head back down.

Play a game of “Ascension” tag! The person who is “it” can only tag people whose feet are touching the ground. To keep from being tagged, other players can climb onto something, or hold their feet off the ground in a creative way. To make the game more challenging, however, only one person can be “ascended” off the ground at a time, and they can only stay off the ground until they’ve counted to 10. In the meantime, all of the other players will be taggable, so the person who is “it” needs to decide if he or she wants to try to tag one of them or keep waiting for the “ascended” one to come back down. The “ascended” person can come down before they get to 10, and as soon as they do, anyone else can “ascend”.

Cook up a little snack to remind you of the Ascension. Cover a blue jello “sky” with whipped topping “clouds”. Or maybe you’d prefer to hide cookie “Jesus” (gingerbread men, Nilla wafers, or another cookie) inside whipped topping “clouds”?