With the release of the Da Vinci Code film there's a lot of blogging going on about it - Graham Doel has a nice video blog giving his initial thoughts and Simon Jones has been using it his cafe services.

As for me, although I enjoyed the novel immensely (even if it has effectively the same plot line as Angels and Demons), there were no plans to pick up on it... until I started writing my Ascension Day sermon, the first one I've ever had to do, and so the first time I've really looked at what the Bible says, and doesn't say, about Ascension.

I realise this will shock and dismay my erstwhile Biblical studies tutor, but I had not appreciated that it is only Luke-Acts that explicitly includes this event (though I did know that these two accounts differ in detail), with the longer 'added on' ending of Mark being the only other gospel reference to it.  At least it made me look at the endings of all four gospels again!

So why did the writer of Luke-Acts see it as important to include this when the other three (haven't re-checked the gnostic writers, sorry) did not?  What questions were being asked about Jesus that prompted its inclusion?  Bells started to flash and lights to ring (as one of my old maths teachers used to say) and the dear old Da Vinci Code popped into my mind - perhaps even in the second century people were wondering and dreaming up wonderful theories (certainly the resurrection accounts in the synoptics suggest this to be so).

We Baptists don't go much on Ascension - indeed the only reason I'm preaching for it is an ecumencial service - perhaps, a bit like the gospel writers, we don't see it as very important, which is a shame because it seems to be exactly in tune with the interest that arises from Dan Brown's novel.  Did Jesus remain on earth, marry and have children?  Well it doesn't answer that question epxlicitly, but it gives another perspective.  Will I escape with my life after I brandish a copy of the Da Vinci Code and Bentley Layton's Gnostic Scriputres in the Methodist church tonight?  Now that's a different story!