The Ascension of the Lord

When He had said this, as they were looking on,

He was lifted up, and a cloud took Him from their sight.

Acts 1:9

The Ascension of the Lord

May 20, 2012

Acts 1:1-11        2 Eph 1:17-23      Mark 16:15-20

First reading from Acts

In the first book, Theophilus, I dealt with all that Jesus did and taught until the day he was taken up, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. He presented himself alive to them by many proofs after he had suffered, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While meeting with them, he enjoined them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for "the promise of the Father about which you have heard me speak; for John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit."

When they had gathered together they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" He answered them, "It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."  When He had said this, as they were looking on, He was lifted up, and a cloud took Him from their sight. While they were looking intently at the sky as He was going, suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them. They said, "Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen Him going into heaven."

The word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

Alleluia, alleluia.

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Mark

Jesus said to his disciples: "Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned. These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages. They will pick up serpents with their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."

After the Lord Jesus spoke to them, He was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God. The disciples went forth and preached everywhere, and the Lord confirmed their preaching with signs of power.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
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Introduction

Ascension & Pentecost

Scripture says Jesus appeared to the apostles and disciples for 40 days after his resurrection (Acts 1: 3), and then ascended bodily into heaven. (Mk. 16: 19-20) Counting 40 day after Easter Sunday gives us a Thursday for the feast of the Ascension. But the Church in some places moves the Ascension from Thursday to the following Sunday to make it more convenient for the faithful to celebrate that important feast
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Then next Sunday will be the feast of Pentecost. It's interesting to note that up until the 4th century the feast of Ascension (when Jesus left the disciples orphonaed) and the feast of Pentecost (when the Holy Spirit was poured upon the orphaned disciples) were but one feast. That communicated the sense of one divine transaction: the emptiness caused the by farewell of the Ascension was immediately filled up with nothing less than a fullness from on high -- the Holy Spirit. Accordingly, and ancient Latin antiphone cries out: "O Admirabile Commercium!" Oh Admirable Exchange! The emptiness of the Ascension is immediately exchanged for the fullness of Pentecost.

A bodily Ascension

Some don’t take the bodily Resurrection of Jesus literally. They say it simply means that He’s alive in our midst by his teaching and example. Such a stance does not do justice to traditional Christian belief which unequivocally confesses that on the third day He rose bodily from the dead. 

 Some also don’t take the bodily Ascension of Jesus into heaven literally. They say it’s nothing more than the early Church trying to discredit any further claims of the risen Lord appearing. (How can He still be appearing, since He has ascend into heaven?) That, too, does not do justice to the traditional belief which unequivocally confesses that He ascended bodily into heaven. The Westminster Confession of Faith states that with the same body in which He suffered and rose from the dead, “Jesus ascended into heaven and there sits at the right hand of his Father to make intercession for us until He comes again.” The Heidelberg Catechism states that in Jesus’ bodily ascension into heaven “we have our own flesh in heaven as a sure pledge that He, our Head, will also take us, his members, up to Himself.”

The Ascension: the Incarnation continued

In his book  Jesus Ascended: The Meaning of Christ's Continuing Incarnation, Gerrit Scott Dawson admits that the Ascension of Jesus has always been difficult for us humans. It just seems too fantastic.  Did a guy really rise up bodily into the sky and then disappear? Dawson thinks that after 33 years of life in human flesh (which ended up crowned with thorns and crucified on a cross) that Jesus “wouldn’t hang on to his humanity but would drop it like a hot potato, and then get back to being the Son of God - without the drag of our human nature.” Dawson says it boggles our minds to think that Jesus in heaven is “still in our skin suit” - still bearing our humanity. The Ascension, he says, is the Incarnation continued; it is the boggling belief that we have one of our own, who knows what it means to be human, and who is sitting at the right hand of God, making intercession for us.

A liturgical correction

In days past, after the reading of the Ascension gospel, a server would dramatically snuff out the Easter candle burning in our midst for 40 days, as a symbol of Jesus’ appearances for 40 days after his resurrection. After snuffing out the candle, the server would whisk it off to some dark closet in the sacristy, where it would remain out of sight until the next Easter Vigil of Holy Saturday. That liturgical gesture of whisking the extinguished Paschal candle out of sight wordlessly said, "He's left us! He’s gone!”

 But if the bodily Ascension of Jesus into heaven is really the Incarnation continued, then Jesus has not really left us; He’s not really gone. And that called for a liturgical correction: the Easter candle is not to be snuffed out on the feast of Ascension and whisked off to some dark sacristy. Rather, it is to remain lighted in our midst until Pentecost Sunday (next Sunday)—the feast of Jesus’ new presence in his Holy Spirit. Then the Paschal candle is to be moved close to the baptismal font. There it is to remain visible throughout the year, and there it is to burn brightly whenever we baptize our little ones into Christ.

The Ascension - a strange farewell

Life is about farewells. We’re always saying goodbye along the journey of life. We say goodbye to happy friendships which reluctantly end because people must simply go their separate ways; such are the goodbyes of June graduations. We say goodbye to friendships which end bitterly and can’t be repaired. We say goodbye to our pet dogs who think we are God, but whom we must put down because we love them so much and can’t bear to see them suffer. We say an utterly final and painful goodbye to our loved ones, as we carry them to their graves. Death is the supreme and ultimate farewell in which all our other farewells mystically participate. Orthodox theologian Nicholas Baerdeyev says, “All farewells have the taste of death about them.”

 If he’s right, then what a strange farewell was the Ascension, when the apostles lost their best friend, Jesus! They expressed neither grief nor disappointment as He left them and ascended into heaven and was taken from their sight. Instead Luke writes, “The disciples went back into Jerusalem, filled with great joy, and spent all their time in the Temple giving thanks to God.” (Lk.24:50-53)  

 What a strange way to feel when you’ve lost your best friend! Jesus departs from the disciples in Bethany on Ascension Day, and they are filled not with sadness but “with great joy!” What a strange farewell is that! The disciples’ world is emptied of Jesus’ presence, and their hearts are “filled with great joy!”  Jesus bids the disciples farewell, and they go directly to the Temple where they spend “all their time giving thanks to God.”

Waiting for “power from on high”

What do we do with the emptiness which dots the human journey? Our culture fills it up with fast food, or with banging music, or with cell phone chatter, or with shopping sprees. What did the apostles do with the emptiness they felt at the Ascension? They didn’t fill it up!  They didn’t head for a fast-food joint or the nearest bar. They didn’t gulp down happy pills, or turn up boom-boxes, or go looking for a gang to fill up their empty feeling. Instead they returned to Jerusalem and headed straight for the Temple and remained there alone in constant prayer. There they waited for their emptiness to be filled not with any old thing, but with “power from on high.” (Lk. 24:49)

The apostles of the Ascension deliver a mystic message: It’s OK to feel empty. In your emptiness don’t jump at any old thing to fill up it up. Instead go to the Temple, and in patience, peace and prayer wait for your emptiness to be filled with “power from on high. “

Conclusion

 Easter candle always in sight

When we come to Mass next Sunday, May 27, 2012, it will be the Solemnity of Pentecost. The Easter candle will no longer be lit, as it was for all the Sundays of Easter. It will no longer occupy the prominent place in the sanctuary, which it did during Easter season. But neither will it be whisked off to some dark sacristy closet. It will, instead, be moved to a spot near the baptismal font. There we will see the candle every Sunday at Mass, and it will remind us that Jesus who ascended into heaven has kept his promise not to leave us orphans. (Jn 14:18) And there the candle will be lighted and burn brightly, as we baptize our little ones into the living and resurrected Christ.