Ascension Day- Year B: May 10, 2018

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Bob Pierson, OHC

Ascension Day, Year B- Thursday, May 10, 2018

To hear the sermon in its fullness click here.

Br. Bob Pierson, OHC 

The Feast of the Ascension reminds me of a discussion we had as seminarians back in the early 80's about the most appropriate song for this celebration.  Should it be “Leavin' on a Jet Plane,” or “Up, up and away in my beautiful balloon?”  Of course, we were joking, but even in our humor we were naming a common belief about the meaning of the Ascension.  

It's about Jesus leaving earth to return to the Father.  St. Leo the Great puts it this way:  “we are commemorating the day on which our poor human nature was carried up, in Christ, above all the hosts of heaven, above all the ranks of angels, beyond the highest heavenly powers to the very throne of God the Father.”  That makes it sound like Jesus has gone far, far away.

The problem with that, though, it that we believe Jesus Christ is still with us.  He who was called “Emmanuel”--God with us—is with us now in an even more intimate way than he was when he lived on the earth, through the power of his life-giving Spirit.  Again, St. Leo the Great says that “our Redeemer's visible presence has passed into the sacraments.”  And in our baptism, we became members of the Body of Christ, and that Body is present all over the world and continues to act as Christ to heal the sick and preach the good news to the poor, to set captives free and to bring the dead to life.  In a real way, Christ is more present today to many more people than Jesus of Nazareth could ever have been in First Century Palestine.

But in order for that to happen, the followers of Jesus had to let go of him as they knew him.  Like Mary Magdalene in the garden on Easter day, they could not cling to him.  He needed to go in order to return in a more powerful way, and today's Scripture readings underline that fact.

In the Acts of the Apostles, the “two men in white robes” remind the disciples that “this Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”  Jesus is not gone forever, and when the Spirit comes the disciples become the witnesses of Christ's power among them.  They become “the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all,” as the letter to the Ephesians reminds us.

So what does all of this have to do with us?  Like the first disciples, we too are called to be witnesses.  Jesus is speaking to us, too, when he says “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and  you will be my witnesses...to the ends of the earth.”  And like those first disciples, we are called to let go and not cling to our old ways of knowing Jesus Christ so that we can recognize him anew in our lives today—here and now.  He continues to come to us in new and powerful ways—and if we open our minds and hearts, we will be given the eyes to see his presence among us.

In the meantime, we wait, and like the disciples, we worship him and bless God for the gifts God bestows on us continually.  And we know that he is with us always—until the end of the age.  How do we reconcile that with the transcendent notion of Jesus at the right hand of the Father?  Perhaps, Jesus is both at the right hand of the Father and with us always, which would put us very close to the Father as well.  Perhaps as we sing God's praise here on earth, we are one with the heavenly choirs of angels and archangels, all of us singing, “Holy, Holy, Holy.”  Perhaps our humanity, in Christ, has been exalted to the right hand of God as well.  Now that's something to celebrate!!!