Homily:
The Ascension of the Lord – Cycle B
Friends,
today we celebrate this great feast of the Ascension: the final, culminating
act of our redemption. This is not, of
course, the crucial act: that was Jesus’ Passion, Death, and Resurrection. Rather, it is the culminating act: the
ultimate reason for which Jesus took on our human flesh, which is, to re-unite
our humanity to God. This, of course, is
a joyful thing. I mean, just think about
your humanity for a moment. Think about
what happens when you don’t take a shower or a bath for a couple of days. Think about changing diapers on babies or
when they spit up on your shoulder. Our
humanity—as we experience it in this world, at least—is a messy (and often
gross) thing. Yet the Divine Son of God,
the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, took on our humanity, in all its
grossness, suffered all of the worst things that it can experience in this
world, and glorified it in his resurrection so that it could be restored to its
perfect communion with the Holy Trinity: which is to say, into an existence of
perfect and eternal happiness.
Yet,
in our Scriptures today, the greatness of this event does not seem to be the
message. The message, rather, seems to
focus on the mission that Christ gives to his apostles. In the first reading from the beginning of
the Acts of the Apostles, we hear Jesus speaking about the Holy Spirit that
Jesus will send to empower his disciples to be his “witnesses in Jerusalem,
throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Then, in our reading from the Gospel of Mark,
we hear Jesus giving his disciples this specific command: “Go into the whole
world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.” Notice at the end of that reading, after it
describes Jesus’ ascension, it doesn’t say “And the disciples sat around and
marveled that Jesus has taken our human nature to be re-united with the Holy
Trinity.” Rather it says that “they went
forth and preached everywhere”. So, if
the Ascension is the culminating act of our redemption, why would the Scriptures
spend so few verses on it and so many on the mission? Let’s take a moment to reflect on that.
I
would argue that this is because the Easter season is not only about
celebration, but about preparation. If
you heard my homily last Sunday or any number of occasions over these past
40-some days, you’ll know that I’ve been encouraging us to consider this time
of Easter as a time of preparation to be re-sent out on mission. If we think about it, we can recognize that this
is what the original “Easter Season” was. The Acts of the Apostles records this for us
when it says: “[Jesus] presented himself alive to them by many proofs after he
had suffered, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the
kingdom of God.” What else could this
have been, but a preparation for being sent out to be his “witnesses … to the
ends of the earth”? Therefore, if our
celebration of Easter is going to be anything more than an excuse to eat our
favorite foods that we gave up for Lent, and if our celebration of Pentecost is
going to be anything more than a brief flash of red at church before going back
to the green of Ordinary Time, then we, too, should have been preparing to
renew our efforts to fulfill this great mission to proclaim the Gospel.
Nevertheless,
this begs the question… “What is the
‘gospel’ (that is, “What is the ‘good news’”)?” The gospel is exactly that of which I spoke
at the beginning of this homily: that “God so loved the world that he gave his
only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have
eternal life.” Now, you might be saying
to yourself, “Wait, that’s not what you said at the beginning of the
homily.” If so, you are both correct and
incorrect. Although I didn’t use those
exact words, I did express that same idea.
The Life, Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus Christ is
what “giving his only Son” looked like.
And restoring our humanity to its original glory so that it may dwell
with God in eternal happiness once again (meaning that each of us with a human
nature can also dwell with God in eternal happiness) is what is meant when
Jesus said that they “might not perish, but might have eternal life”. This is the “gospel”—the “good news”—that
Jesus commissioned his disciples to proclaim. ///
Notice,
for a moment, what this gospel doesn’t say: it doesn’t say that Jesus came to
show us how to be good persons and, therefore, we are eternally grateful to him
for it. Rather, it says that our broken,
messy, and often gross humanity has been perfected (that is, glorified) in
Jesus Christ; and that, through him, we, too, can achieve and enjoy that
perfection.
Friends,
if you need any sign that this gospel is needed in today’s world, you don’t
have to look too far. Ever since Adam
and Eve’s sin, humankind has been plagued with pride: the kind of pride that
makes us believe that we can perfect ourselves by our own ingenuity and, thus,
have heaven right here. Unfortunately, this
usually results in things looking more distorted (and, therefore, less perfect)
than they were in the first place. The
gospel of Jesus Christ is the answer for anyone whose pride has led him or her down
this dead-end road.
Sadly,
many people around us do not even know that there is anything more for which to
hope than this disfigured humanity and our attempts to perfect it by
ourselves. Thus, we, who have received
this good news, must be re-sent out on mission.
Just like Jesus’ first apostles, we, too, are called to be his
“witnesses … to the ends of the earth” to bring this good news: that life is
not just about how good you can make it in this world, but that it’s destined
for something so much greater; which Jesus, in his ascension, has shown us.
We
are witnesses when we live as Saint Paul exhorts us to live in today’s second
reading when he says: “I … urge you to live in a manner worthy of the calling you
have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with
one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the Spirit through
the bond of peace…” In this way, we will
model authentic human community, built on love, and, thus, attract those
seeking a perfect humanity so that they might find it in its fullness through
union with Jesus Christ.
Therefore,
my friends, in this final week of the Easter season—that is, the final week of
preparation to be re-sent out on mission—let rejoice that God has restored our
human nature to its original perfection in Jesus Christ. Let us also pray fervently for a renewal of
God’s Holy Spirit in us: so that we can be witnesses for Christ and the gospel
of salvation once again.
Given at Saint Joseph Parish: Delphi, IN – May 16th,
2021
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