The Life of Jesus Advent Calendar - Day 23: The Ascension

Introduction

We move on from the Gospels now into the book of Acts. I wanted the advent calendar to end with the ongoing work of Jesus today, through his church. The twenty-third stocking depicts the Ascension of Jesus into heaven, where his is now interceding before the Father on our behalf. Tomorrow, we'll learn more about the Pentecost.

The disciples had only just been reunited with Jesus, and now he was leaving them again! I imagine they might have felt slightly dismayed and confused by this - in Acts 1 verse 6 they ask Jesus if he will now restore the kingdom to Israel, so they must have been expecting Jesus stick around on earth for a bit. But God had a plan for sharing the good news beyond just Jerusalem, and he was going to use these fallible followers of Christ to do it. Christ promises them power through the Holy Spirit to share his kingdom, and then ascends into heaven.

I wonder if it was a comfort to the disciples to then hear from the angels that Jesus would be returning. How would that have shaped their lives from then on? How does it shape our lives today?  

Assembling your Stocking

When I cut out the disciples for this stocking, I cut out two of each, as you need the same for tomorrow's stocking. Remember, you will only need eleven for this stocking, as Judas is no more. You'll need one additional one for tomorrow's stocking - Matthias, the new disciple who gets elected after the ascension.  

You have used all the templates in this stocking previously, the smaller angels are from the previous stocking, and the clouds have been used a few times.

In this stocking, I chose to stitch Jesus with the gold thread, to reflect his eternal resurrected body, just to show bit of a difference between before and after the resurrection. But I don't think you have to do this, I was probably overthinking, or not thinking enough. You could also use gold to stitch the clouds, I think originally had intended this, but changed my mind for some reason.

Arrange the disciples so you stitch the ones furthest away from us down first. I didn't give any faces to the disciples, as I picture them all standing with their backs to us, watching Jesus being raised into heaven. It's a good opportunity to use up any scraps of thread you might have accumulated over the previous stockings, as you won't need too much for each disciple.

You can watch a brief video of this stocking being assembled on my Facebook or Instagram.

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