Many folks, especially preachers, don't know what to make of Luke's accounts (Luke 24:50-53; Acts 1:1-11) of the ascension of Jesus. The other three gospels don't mention it and, frankly, the story seems a little too mythical for twenty-first-century readers. Educated people of the western world have discarded the three-tier cosmology. In the understanding of today's universe, it's not possible to know what is up and what is down. People looking up into the skies today might be looking at other beings on other planets looking down at us. That is why the trapdoors high up in European church ceilings are sealed shut. No one would be impressed today by the raising of a figure of Jesus at worship on Ascension Thursday high up through a trapdoor in the ceiling. Perhaps it would be more useful t…