Monday, Day 44: Scroll

In the Orthodox icon of the Ascension, Jesus is sitting comfortably above a large crowd, looking directly at us, the viewers. His right hand is extended in a traditional blessing. In his left, he is holding a scroll.

Saints who were prolific writers are often depicted holding scrolls. But in the Bible, the only story we have in which Jesus gets close to writing is a strange story of a time when he kneeled in the sand and wrote something with a stick. We don’t know what, exactly, he wrote, but right after that, he saved a woman from being stoned to death, saying the famous words, “Whoever has never sinned should cast the first stone.”  

Other than that, Jesus was a little too busy trying to change the world to record what he was doing. That had to happen later, much later, and the accounts vary considerably, even among those who were there with him. 

So what in the world does the scroll in Jesus’ left hand mean?

I am sure scholars have good ideas of what the ancient iconographers intended,  but I would like to believe that Jesus is extending the scroll to us in the same way that he is extending his blessing. He is looking at us, handing it over, saying, “Ok, I’m out of here. Take what you’ve learned and write your own story now.”

This idea seems in line with the almond-shaped light connecting heaven and earth, with the way he is looking so calmly straight ahead at viewers who will show up long after this event occurred, rather than downward at his contemporaries, most of whom appear in the icon to be incredibly confused and afraid.

The Resurrection, and the Ascension, are about both ending and beginning. The 40 days between them are days of openness to mystery, of being present to what can never be fully understood, of making sense of the teachings as we re-encounter Jesus in new ways, again and again.