Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

Fr. Ben Riley

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Ascension. And the thought I keep having is, the apostles must have been surprised. For the past few weeks Jesus kept telling them, “I will only be with you a little while longer. I am going up to my Father, I will send the spirit and the spirit will lead you to all truth”. But then to actually see Him rise through the clouds and ascend into heaven, that must have been quite a shock. I wonder if the apostles felt abandoned. They probably thought that Jesus, would be the one to continue spreading the good news. They saw Him perform miracles, they saw him conquer death on the cross, and rise from the dead. So, they probably thought, that He would never leave them. But He did. And I wonder if they felt abandoned. . . I wonder if you ever feel abandoned by God?

The ascension of the Lord, I would argue, is a difficult feast and idea for people today to understand. Jesus rising bodily into heaven seems to a lot of people as a pre-scientific mythological idea. And without a theological context it does sound odd. I mean is he still up there in a bodily form just hanging out somewhere up in the universe? And then even if that type of question doesn’t concern you, you might still say, “Well, what does this feast have to do with me?”

I think the key to understanding this feast and applying its significance to our own lives comes through recovering a Jewish understanding of heaven and earth. Most people are pretty Greek- thinking when it comes to their understanding of heaven. Think back to Plato’s Republic and the Allegory of The Cave. This allegory has people chained to the bottom of a cave facing a wall, and all they can see are shadows flickering on the wall, because another person behind them is placing paper cutouts of trees and animals in front of a fire which casts the shadows on the wall. Eventually, one of the prisoners escapes the chains and sees the paper cutouts, believing that they are reality, not the shadows. And finally, he climbs out of the cave and sees actual trees and animals. For Plato, this allegory is used to describe our world as a kind of prison, preventing us from reaching the realm of the Forms. And in other writings Plato even describes the body as a prison, and death as the soul’s way of escaping to a higher realm. Whether or not we are aware of this philosophy, it is still a belief that has influenced our way of thinking.

The problem is, it’s not a Jewish way of thinking about heaven and earth. Biblical people don’t hold this drastic distinction: that heaven is a realm of God and angels, while earth is a land of human beings, plants, and animals, and the goal of the human should be to escape the prison of this physical world and enter the freedom of a spiritual one. This is not what the Bible expresses. Instead, it shows us that heaven and earth are not two distinct metaphysical realities, but that they are interlaced, and touch upon each other in all kinds of ways. And the purpose of salvation is not so much to escape from the wicked world as veil of tears, but rather the transfiguration of the earth into a heavenly kingdom. There is a clue in the Our Father when Jesus says, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” We pray for this all the time. We pray for the prophecy of Revelation to come to fulfillment, not as an occasion of fear and loathing but as a time of transfiguration and renewal. John saw a vision, the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. John, heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will always be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, [for] the old order has passed away.”

Now with this Jewish context, Christ’s resurrection makes perfect sense. The ascension is not Jesus abandoning his people, escaping the prison of this world to reign in heaven, where we will follow. Christ rose to heaven so that he might one day, bring heaven back to us. And we, who remain are called to prepare the way of the Lord. We are like John the Baptist proclaiming Christ as the Messiah, we are like the palm branches paving the way for Christ’s glorious entrance into Jerusalem. The problem with Plato’s allegory of the cave is that the man who is freed and sees the reality of the world outside the cave, he doesn’t go back down into the cave to free his friends. The ascension of our lord is categorically different. God became man so that we might become like God, and Jesus rose to heaven so that we might prepare for the day when he brings heaven back down to us.

Let me close with this. Notice how the ascension of Jesus is correlated to Pentecost, the feast we will celebrate next week. Jesus rose to heaven, yes, but then he sent the Holy Spirit. He gave us the power of the Holy Spirit, the spirit through whom we live and move and have our being. The apostles probably thought it was Jesus who would continue spreading the good news. Little did they know, that through the grace of the Holy Spirit, it would be them, it would be us.

In today’s gospel, Jesus gives us the Great Commission. “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Jesus gave us the power of the Holy Spirit, not so that we can keep our faith to ourselves, but so that we can share it. And as a fire spreads, the fire of the Spirit that burns in each one of us will spark in those around us a desire for the love, hope, and joy, that we have in Christ.

Jesus did not abandon us by ascending into heaven. We do live in a broken world, and we are called to live lives that reflect the truths of our faith so that when Christ comes, we are not caught off guard. But we also have to remember, it is not our job to fix the world, it is not our job to save it. Jesus has already saved the world, He did so by his sacrifice on the cross, and one day He will return. He has entrusted us with the mission of bringing his kingdom to fulfillment.