The Ascension of the Lord

The Ascension does not mark the end of Jesus’ relationship with the Church but the beginning of a new way of His relating to the world through the Church.  

At least here in the Diocese of Harrisburg, we celebrate the Ascension of the Lord today.   The great western Church Father and Bishop Augustine proclaimed these words on the Feast which are found in the Office of readings for the Liturgy of the Hours:

“Today our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven; let our hearts ascend with him.  Listen to the words of the Apostle: If you have risen with Christ, set your hearts on the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God; seek the things that are above, not the things that are on earth.  For just as he remained with us even after his ascension, so we too are already in heaven with him, even though what is promised us has not yet been fulfilled in our bodies.”

When we went down into that Font of Baptism we were incorporated into Jesus Christ.  Therefore, as Augustine also wrote, speaking in the Spirit and for the Lord, “Where the Head is, there is the Body, where I am, there is my Church, we too are one; the Church is in me and I in her and we two are your Beloved and your Lover.”  In other words, we have ascended with the Lord! He is the Head and we are members of His Body.  We cannot be separated. Augustine, reflecting the clear teaching of the early Church Fathers reminds us that the Head and the Body are the “One Christ.”

Jesus Christ has bridged heaven and earth.  All that separated us from the Father has been definitively dealt with and we have been redeemed.  We are now in the process of being re-created anew in Him as we freely cooperate with His grace at work within us and mediated through His Body, the Church, through the Word and the Sacraments which communicate His Divine Life.  Through this grace we have been really incorporated into the Trinitarian communion of love with God the Father, in the Son and through the Holy Spirit.  In a very real sense, we live our lives now in the Church.

The Ascension does not mark the end of Jesus’ relationship with the Church but the beginning of a new way of His relating to the world through the Church.  The Church is not some “thing”, the Church is Some-One, the Risen Christ truly present now in the world which was created through Him and is being re-created through Him.  This Church is the new Israel, sent into the world to continue His redemptive mission until He comes again to complete the work of Redemption.  Through us, Love Incarnate still walks through time.

The Christian vocation is about learning to live this new relationship in Christ together, with the Father, through the Holy Spirit and for the world that still awaits its full redemption.  The Ascension of the Lord is not a final act. Nor is it some kind of “intermission”, to be concluded upon Christ’s Bodily return which will most certainly occur.  Rather, it is about a new beginning, a new way of being, in the here and now.

The Apostle Paul wrote to the early Christians in Galatia: “No longer do I live but Christ lives in me and the life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God…” (Galatians 2:19,20) Jesus said “Abide in me as I in you” (John 15:4).  These are not mere sentiments of piety but reality now because of what has occurred through the “Paschal Mystery”, the saving Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Living, abiding in Christ is meant to become our daily reality.  Christians can live differently now because we live “in” Jesus Christ.  We can love differently now because we love “in” Jesus Christ. We can “be” differently now because as St. Paul wrote to the Colossians “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God”.

On this Great Feast we should ask ourselves this question, “How are we doing?”  The Feast presents us an opportunity to assess the relationship between our profession of faith and its manifestation in our daily lives.  St. Paul encouraged the Christians in Corinth in his second letter to take just such an examination: “Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in faith.  Test yourselves.  Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?  Unless, of course, you fail the test.  I hope you will discover that we have not failed”

Philosophers and Theologians speak of “ontology” as the essence of being, what makes something what it is.  There is an “ontological” meaning to this Feast of the Ascension.  We have ascended with Him and are called to live on earth the very realities of heaven.  This Feast is not only a remembrance of an event occurring two millennia ago.  We cannot go back to “same old, same old” now that He has ascended.  This Feast gives us insight into the Feast of Pentecost which we will soon celebrate as well.  The “breath” of God has been breathed into this Church - and into each one of us - in order to enable us to experience and engage in His ongoing work of redemption.

That work will not be complete until the One who ascended returns and hands the re-created cosmos back to the Father. That is “the plan”, the “mystery” now revealed in Jesus Christ.  Let me conclude with the words of the great Apostle and mystic Paul, who reflects for the Christians in Ephesus, and for us, on this plan:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him.  In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of his will, for the praise of the glory of his grace that he granted us in the beloved.  In him we have redemption by his blood, the forgiveness of transgressions, in accord with the riches of his grace that he lavished upon us.

"In all wisdom and insight, he has made known to us the mystery of his will in accord with his favor that he set forth in him as a plan for the fullness of times, to sum up all things in Christ, in heaven and on earth....  In him you also, who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised holy Spirit, which is the first installment of our inheritance toward redemption as God's possession, to the praise of his glory.” (Ephesians 1:3-14)