Ascension Word Search

This Ascension word search gathers the words of the day Jesus was taken up into heaven: forty days after Easter, the Mount of Olives near Bethany, the cloud that hid him, the eleven apostles left gazing at the sky, the promise of the Holy Spirit and the feast kept on a Thursday.

Luke tells the story twice, at the end of his Gospel and at the start of Acts, both addressed to a man named Theophilus. Acts says Jesus appeared to his followers for forty days after the resurrection, led them out as far as Bethany on the Mount of Olives, told them to wait in Jerusalem for the Spirit and to be his witnesses, and was lifted up until a cloud took him from their sight. Two men in white robes asked why they stood looking at the sky. The apostles walked back, a Sabbath day's walk, and chose Matthias to replace Judas.

Ascension Day falls on the Thursday of the sixth week after Easter, between April 30 and June 3, and it is a public holiday in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and the Nordic countries; in Germany it doubles as Father's Day. Many dioceses in the United States move the feast to the following Sunday. On the Mount of Olives a small domed chapel holds a stone said to carry the print of Jesus' foot, and English parishes once spent the days before it walking the parish boundary, a custom called beating the bounds.