Fr. Kevin
Acts 1:1-11; Ephesians; Mark 16:15-20
After 33 years the circle has become complete. The Son of God, who came down from heaven, taking on our humble human form, returns in triumph to be reunited with his Father. Father and Son are once again perfectly united in heaven, as they had been for all eternity, but now with one difference. Our humanity, which had been separated from God because of sin, has now been reunited with God through Jesus. You could say that a part of us now lives in heaven, even as we, united with Jesus, still live in his Church here on earth.
But what is so important about our belief in the ascension? Why did Jesus have to return to heaven? I see three important answers to this question. The first is that as long as Jesus lived on this earth, he was limited by our human condition. God though he is, he was also fully human, and could function as God only within the limitations of his humanity.
This means, that if he had not ascended to heaven he would still be living somewhere on earth today. Now at first that might sound awesome. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could go and have an audience with Jesus? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to meet him face to face in this world? The answer to this is both yes and no. If Jesus was still on this earth in his human form he would only be able to speak to one group of people, in one place, at any one time. This would limit his ability to proclaim the kingdom. Also, if Jesus still lived on earth in his human form most people would never have the opportunity to meet him. It would be like going to meet the pope. If you have ever had the opportunity to meet a pope, most likely there were tens or hundreds of thousands of other people there. You most likely only had a chance to see him at a great distance. Furthermore, most people would never get to meet him, even those who believe in him. The majority of people in the world simply do not have the money, or the time, or the means to take a plane trip halfway around the world to see the pope. The same would be true if Jesus were still here on earth.
But by Jesus ascending to heaven, the Holy Spirit, who is not limited by our human form, was free to come and dwell on the entire earth. This means that Jesus can be present and inspire countless numbers of people in multitudes of places, all at the same time. He does this most fully through the Eucharist. If Jesus was still here on the earth, most likely we would not have the Eucharist. We would only be able to receive his sacramental presence directly from him. But as he established it, he makes his sacramental presence available to all through the sacraments of his Church. Through the prayer of the bishops and priests, consecrated by the Holy Spirit, and acting in the person of Christ, the Eucharist can be made available to all people.
A second reason that it is important for Jesus to be in heaven is that God has made him judge of heaven and earth. Jesus, who was human like us in all things but sin, knows how difficult it is for us humans. He knows how difficult it is to do and say the right things. He knows how great and many are the temptations that would lead us away from him. And so, he is a just judge, a compassionate judge. This means that when we die and meet Jesus face to face, he will judge us with full compassion, understanding, and love. This doesn’t mean we can do anything we darn well please. No! Because we believe this we have the obligation to live accordingly.
This leads us then to the third important reason why Jesus ascended to heaven. Too often, we live our faith like those disciples on the mountain. After the Lord ascended to heaven they just stood there with their eyes fixed on heaven. Too often we limit our practice of faith with the focus on the end reward of heaven. What we do, or don’t do, is motivated mostly by our desire to get to heaven or our fear of ending up in hell. When we reduce our faith to this it becomes nothing more than a scorecard faith, a keeping track of sins and good works, hoping that our good works will be enough to get us to heaven.
When we reduce our faith to this it runs the risk of becoming totally personal and self-centered. It becomes only about me and my personal relationship with God. And then we can begin to buy into the many false notions, “I don’t have to go to Church to be a good Christian. I don’t need to do all those things or follow all those rules. I can just be a good person and still get to heaven.” Authentic Christian faith is not that at all. Authentic Christian faith is not about me and what God has done for me, it is more about what God wants me to do for others. This is why those angels who appeared on the mountain more or less said, “Boys why are you just standing here looking at the sky? Jesus will return, but now you’ve got work to do. So get to work.”
That is what authentic Christian faith is all about. Because we believe in heaven, because we believe that our sins have been forgiven, we have the obligation first of all to stop our sinning. Then we have the obligation to share that good news with others. Fortunately for us, those first disciples finally got it, and they got to work spreading the good news. If they had not we would not be here today, because no one else would ever have known Jesus.
Today, then, the job is ours. Just as Jesus commissioned those first disciples to go out and tell the good news, he also commissions us to do the same. We have to stop approaching our faith only on the hope that if we do enough good things we might someday get to heaven. We have to live our faith as though heaven is possible right now. We have to stop waiting for heaven, and instead make heaven happen here on earth.
We do this first by resolving to stop sinning. We have to stop the cruelty of talking about our neighbors when we get together for our coffee parties and instead look inside ourselves at what we might do to help our neighbors. We have to stop being lazy when it comes to attending mass and instead be diligent not only about being here, but being in the right frame of mind. We have to stop being ignorant about our faith, and instead take the opportunities to learn more about our faith. We have to stop being stingy with our time, our talents, and our treasures and instead recognize that all that we have has been entrusted to us to build up God’s kingdom here on earth.
We have to also start doing things like encouraging other people in the ways of faith. We have to be concerned about the poor, the homeless, the hungry. We have to be the ones who help to change unjust laws and political systems that bring harm to the lives of people. We have a huge amount of work to do. Alone, we can do nothing. But with God all things are possible. Because Jesus ascended to heaven, he is ready to be with us, and bless us, and fill us with all the grace we need to make heaven happen here on earth. We simply need to be willing to let him do it, through us, as he has chosen. So let us resolve to get to work and build God’s kingdom here on earth until that time we will join him in the heavenly kingdom.
