Forty days

Sunday evening a friend asked:

Were you struck with the contrast between today’s first and third readings at Mass? In Luke, Jesus ascends on Easter evening, while in Acts, he ascends 40 days later. Isn’t that odd? Did Luke forget, when he got to his second work, how he had ended the first one? Or think that his readers (hearers) would forget? Did he not have the earlier work to look back at? Did he not care what he had said before? Or are we to assume he thought of Jesus’ ascending more than once? Perhaps Jesus ascended on Easter, came back from time to time during the next 40 days, and then departed for good (except to appear to Paul some time later)?

It took me two days to come up with a reply, and I'm still not happy with it:

No, the differences between Luke and Acts didn't hit me. I'll blame it on Joey. Its hard to focus on the lectors when he's smiling and cuddling and playing.

It wasn't really his fault, however. The gospel selection didn't mention what day the ascension took place; the only way I would have known (Remembered? No, probably "known.") that it occurred on Easter would be if I had reviewed the context of the reading ahead of time, and I didn't.

As for why Luke would offer two such different accounts, I like your idea that maybe he didn't care what he had said before. (A few moments ago, while looking for something totally unrelated, I came across this quote: "We must constantly remind ourselves that devotion to fact is a relatively modern dimension of human thought..." [H.C. Kee, Jesus in History])

In the gospel [of Jesus Christ], I assume Luke saw no reason to delay Christ's victorious return to the Father's embrace. In Acts [of the Apostles], he realized that the authority of his protagonists would be enhanced by saying that Jesus spent a lengthy period of time with them after his resurrection. In both stories, the (or at least "a") main theological point is the same -- the glorification of the Lord. Differences in detail just weren't important.

Anyway, that's my guess. Thanks for giving me something to think about.