In The Netherlands we celebrate Ascension Day as a national holiday. May 29 this year. We all get an extra day off, but I don’t think many people stop to contemplate what we’re actually celebrating. If we allow ourselves to think about it for a moment, the implications are vast, whether you consider yourself a follower of Jesus or not.
Every year, Ascension Day marks a turning point in the Christian calendar—a moment 40 days after Easter when Jesus is said to have ascended into heaven, leaving behind a trail of wonder, purpose, and a world forever changed.
But Ascension Day is more than a mystical story from ancient texts. It’s a powerful metaphor and spiritual invitation—for believers and non-believers alike—to rise beyond fear, complacency, and self-preservation, and step fully into a life of purpose. Whether you follow Jesus as the Christ or see him as one of history’s most impactful changemakers, what he said—and did—still echoes with clarity and urgency.
“I have come that they may have life, and have it more abundantly.” — Jesus in John 10:10 in The Bible
The Mission Was Never Just to Leave
Ascension isn’t the end of the story. It’s the beginning of a movement.
Jesus didn’t ascend to abandon. He ascended to activate. His final words weren’t just lofty farewells—they were a commissioning. A call to take up the work he started: healing what’s broken, lifting up the marginalized, feeding the hungry, restoring dignity to the discarded, and building a world where love gets the last word.
And he wasn’t vague about the kind of impact he expected us to make. “You will do even greater works than these,” he said. Greater. Not safer. Not quieter. Not smaller.
Ascension is a launching pad, not a landing place.
For the Change Agents and Visionaries
If you’re someone who is hoping to make a difference—whether in boardrooms or classrooms, in art or activism—Ascension Day speaks directly to you. It invites you to elevate your vision. To lead not from ego, but from empathy. To create not just for profit, but for purpose. To move through the world with the audacity to believe that your life, aligned with love, can transform others.
This is not about religious dogma. It’s about aligning with the deeper call within you: to rise—above mediocrity, fear, division—and walk in the footsteps of someone who lived to bring abundance to the hurting, hope to the cynical, and peace to the restless.
For the Doubters and the Dreamers
Even if you don’t see Jesus as divine, what would it mean to take his words seriously? To believe that life is meant to be abundant—not just in wealth or status, but in purpose, in courage, in connection?
What if the real miracle is not in the clouds above, but in the fact that ordinary people—like you and me—are invited to carry on a mission of radical generosity, disruptive compassion, and bold innovation?
Ascend to What?
Ascension Day challenges us to ask:
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What part of me still needs to rise?
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What patterns or perspectives am I leaving behind?
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Who around me needs to be lifted, loved, or liberated?
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Am I living in a way that gives others more life—not less?
The Call Is Ours Now
The work of justice, creativity, healing, and reconciliation—that’s not someone else’s job. It’s ours. It always has been.
And while Jesus ascended, his legacy did not. It walks on two feet, in every person who chooses to be bold enough to follow in his footsteps and live with courage, kindness, conviction, and compassion.
Whether you call it faith, purpose, or calling—today is a good day to rise.
To live.
To love.
To lead.
And to lift others as you go.
Let’s make it personal:
What does “life more abundantly” mean to you? What would it look like to live that out today—in your business, your art, your leadership, your relationships?
You don’t have to have all the answers. Just take the next faithful step. That’s how movements begin.
Ascend. And bring others with you.