THE ASCENSION OF THE LORD A

[cappie]

NOTE: In those places where the solemnity of the Ascension has been transferred to the Seventh Sunday of Easter, the Mass and readings of the Ascension are used

Ascension is not a literal date – even Luke, whose chronology most quickly springs to mind, has the Ascension on Easter Day in his gospel, and forty days later in his volume two, the Acts of the Apostles. 

Now six Sundays have passed since we heard that Jesus was raised from the dead.  The Ascension marks an end to Jesus being with his followers in this way. On this day, Jesus took his inner circle out to Bethany — just outside the city walls, the place where Mary and Martha and Lazarus who  lived. The place where Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. And here in Bethany, Jesus told them the time had come, and that they should remember and keep telling all the people in Jerusalem and all around the good news that he taught. And then he raised his hands and blessed them. And while he was blessing them, he was carried up into heaven.  

 The Ascension story is pointing us toward something bigger than ourselves, toward meaning, toward Truth with a capital T.  .

Today, Jesus teaches a truth with his ascension. Not just his words, but his actions reveal a new reality waiting to be born. Why did Jesus lead his disciples out to Bethany to say their final good-byes? Jesus chose to spend a lot of time in Bethany. It was always where he stayed when he came to the city of Jerusalem. This is where Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus lived.

Bethany wasn’t a very nice neighbourhood, though. It was outside the city walls, just out of sight of the Temple, in fact. The name Bethany translates to something like “the house of affliction.” It was where the city of Jerusalem sent people who were poor or sick. There was a homeless shelter there, and a leper hospital. Bethany was built out of sight of the Temple so that those coming into the city to worship wouldn’t have to see all that ugliness, that poverty and desperation.

And that is precisely where Jesus chose to spend most of his time. These are the people Jesus chose to spend time with. He poured out his life in love for them. And Bethany is the last place on earth Jesus chose to be seen, among the poor and the suffering. This is the truth of the Ascension: that Jesus went from that house of affliction into every place and time, carrying in his heart the cares and concerns of all the poor people of the earth. And now he surrounds and infiltrates all times and all places with the beating heart of this truth, sometimes hidden just under the surface, but always there, if you’re willing to face it: the truth that real love costs everything you have, and it’s the only thing that matters.

In the early Church, as today, Easter was the normal time for the baptism of adult converts. The sacrament was often called “illumination” or “enlightenment” because of the light that came with God’s saving grace.  Saint Paul, in his Letter to the Ephesians, speaks in terms of glory that leads to greater glories still, as Ascension leads to Pentecost: “May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened,” he writes. Their “hope” is “his inheritance among the holy ones,” the saints who have been adopted into God’s family and now rule with Him at the Father’s right hand.

Finally, God did not dress up in a human body and then discard this at death, returning to some preferable spiritual state. God’s union to creation is permanent. Christ retains his full, created, creaturely, humanity in the resurrection. Including his body. The Ascension proclaims and celebrates Christ takes this creation into the full presence of God.

This is the “good news” the Apostles are commissioned to spread—to the whole world, to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem—at the Ascension. It’s the good news we must spread today.