ASCENSION OF THE LORD 2021

 ASCENSION OF THE LORD

16 MAY  2021

1.     We celebrate today Jesus’ ascension to heaven.  Ascension is not just the end of Jesus’ earthly presence, not just getting back his glory in heaven. The purpose is not to demonstrate to the disciples about his greatness, nor also to prove to all the people that he is glorious. Rather ascension is the point of completion and fulfillment of Jesus’ mission on earth as a human person.

2.     As a matter of time and temporality, Ascension is also the end of the duration of preparation of the disciples for their life and mission after and without Jesus. Yes, the duration between his resurrection and ascension is not a period of suspension but of intense preparation of the disciples, appearing to them, continuing to teach them, illumine them, guide them, strengthen, and confirm them in their faith and mission. It was a preparation to meet the future in his physical absence. How the future will be without Jesus? How they have to live and do their mission? These are crucial and disturbing questions.

3.     It is at this point, that we highlight as responses three essential aspects of ascension: confirmation, assurance and assignment. Primarily ascension is a confirmation. Confirmation of faith that our Lord is Lord of heaven, seated at the right hand of the Father, able to sympathize with us, intercede for us, and sustain us from heaven. Confirmation that heaven is the original abode of Jesus. Confirmation that Jesus is in eternal communion with the Father and the Spirit.  Confirmation that Jesus resumes his original abode, his original glory, his original identity, his original communion. He is not gaining anything new, anything that is not his. He is regaining what is his own. In fact ascension is truly restoration. Jesus attests: “As I came from the Father and have come into the world, so I am leaving the world and going to the Father” (Jn 16. 28). God the Father restores to Jesus his original glory. Jesus accomplishes Father’s will and the mission entrusted to him. The Father is pleased with his fidelity, and so as sign of this holy pleasure and as an evidence of this victory over evil, God raises Jesus, and that is resurrection. Thus resurrection is the authentic testimony that Jesus’ incarnation, life, passion and death are not futile, but are purposive and infinitely efficacious and meritorious, and thereafter ascension is a complete confirmation of this victory and glory. Jesus goes back to where he comes from. A vital chapter of his redemptive mission is over.

4.      Then ascension is Assurance: assurance that we will not be left alone as he goes away from the earth, finishing his physical existence. Assurance that he will never abandon us but will accompany us through the Holy Spirit. Assurance that our help will not be less with Jesus’ going away, but in fact will be much more. In heaven and from heaven, he is totally powerful, and he is not restricted and constrained by any human limitations and vicissitudes. Therefore we should rejoice that Jesus ascended to heaven, rather than lament that he has left us, going away from earth. This is what Jesus makes clear to the disciples also: “it is better for you that I go away, because as long as I do not leave, the Helper will not come to you” (Jn 16. 7).  So an assurance that Jesus’ presence, guidance and power will never cease, but the Holy Spirit will continue the same presence, guidance and power of Jesus. Assurance also that our destiny and destination is also heaven, as Jesus assures the disciples in his farewell discourse that “you shall be with me where I am” (Jn 14. 3). Assurance that they and we will share the same glory, as Jesus prays in his farewell prayer: “Father, since you have given them to me, I want them to be with me where I am and see the Glory you gave me” (Jn 17. 24). 

5.     Further, there is also a summon, an assignment: A call to trust in and live by a new kind of presence and power of God, the spiritual presence and power, beyond the physical. We should go beyond our too much clinging to what is physical, direct, external and visible, and learn to walk in a higher spiritual realm. An assignment to commit ourselves to attain the same destiny of ascension, i.e. residing in the same Glory. It is a commitment to a daily ascension, which consists in an incessant restoration, regaining of our original identity and dignity. Obtaining the heavenly glory is not acquiring something new which is not there. It is not a novel creation or a grand invention or acquisition, but a discovery, a recapturing, a regain of what is already there. A commitment to become what we already are: to daily “ascend” to our real higher self, our true identity of being God’s own images, the children of God, disciples and friends of Christ, abodes of the Holy Spirit and the heirs of heaven.