A Reflection on Ascension Sunday

The Easter season is drawing to a close.  In earlier times Ascension was celebrated on Thursday, exactly 40 days after the Resurrection of Easter morning.  Easter events that realized what had been prophesied through the Old Testament and crucifixion.  From the Resurrection over these forty days Jesus had still been bodily among the Apostles, been seen by them and even eaten with them, reassuring them that even though he was dead, he is with them — alive.

The Ascension is an “in between”, a transition from earth to heaven, humanity to divinity, from prophesy to fulfillment.  Ascension is also a visible sign of the new promises made by Jesus that tie together heaven and earth in a new way, a new Power, where all Power has been given to Jesus.  There is a New Spirit, a new relationship, a new Covenant.  With Jesus at His Father’s right hand, we have an advocate to petition for forgiveness, for mercy, for grace.  We have an assurance that even if Jesus is not present in His humanity, He is here in the new Covenant of Bread and Wine.

Do we preach the excitement of how our lives have been changed?  Faith develops a passion for a willingness to sacrifice comfort and self, for passion for service, for passion for the needy.  Our Faith must reflect the Easter Season — there must be resurrection, rising to challenges even when we cannot see the goal, rising to excellence, rising to the joy of an eternal Easter, risen in our flesh and in the body of this community of faith.  Next week the promises are already starting to unfold with the coming of the Holy Spirit.  Pentecost is the birthday of the Church.  Pentecost — fifty days after life emerged from the tomb.  The seed planted on Good Friday emerged from the rocky soil. In agriculture it is time to harvest the first fruits.  These first fruits ascending to God, bring the Spirit to give courage to the Church, to open the doors of the upper room and proclaim in every language, to every nation — Jesus Christ is Lord.