THAT WE MIGHT THITHER ASCEND

Solemnity of the Ascension

(Sunday after the Ascension)

16 May, AD 2010

TEXT:  Acts 1:9-11

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen.

“And when He had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud receive Him out of their sight.  And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; Which also said, ‘Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?  This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.”  (Acts 1:9 – 11).  

The feast of the Ascension of Our Lord into Heaven does not often receive the attention it deserves.  The Resurrection of Jesus on Easter has occurred and forty days of appearances of His Glorious and Resurrected Body have passed.  Now, He leads His Apostles out to the Mount of Olives, raises His hands in Blessing, and ascends before them into Heaven after promising them that they would receive the gift of the Holy Ghost not many days hence, by whom they will be able to boldly preach the Gospel of Salvation beginning in Jerusalem and then throughout Judea and Samaria and even unto the ends of the earth.  At this point in time, the event of the Ascension is like a huge junction with roads going in many different directions – all leading to the proclamation of the Gospel and, ultimately, our salvation; all worthy of our attention and study.  We could look backwards and examine all that Jesus said and did, which He fulfilled at His Resurrection.  We could preach on the promise of God the Father and the coming of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost or the birthday of the Church which Jesus came to establish.  But all of these topics, important as they are, are of secondary importance if we are to focus, primarily, on the necessity of the Ascension and begin to understand its importance and necessity for us as human beings and as Christians.  

       One of the first questions, then, that we might ask ourselves on the Ascension is, “Where is Jesus now?”  Both St. Luke’s Gospel, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Creeds answer that question.  Jesus has ascended back into Heaven from whence He came, to resume His seat at the Right Hand of God the Father.  The Eternal Word has ascended back to His Father in Heaven to resume His place in Glory which He has occupied since before the beginning of time.  Jesus’ return to the Glory He held with the Father “before all worlds” as the Creed teaches, does not signify some kind of loss or deficiency for us.  Jesus ascended up into Heaven not to leave us, but to prepare a place for us in Heaven, and to send us another Comforter, the Holy Ghost, as St. John records in his Gospel, so He could fill the entire world with His Presence all at once.  Had Jesus not ascended, then, the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, could not have come to fill the whole world with God’s Presence.  Without the Ascension, Jesus’ Resurrection would have soon become meaningless and hollow.  The Good News, itself, and the spread of the Gospel would have been hindered had Jesus not ascended.  Consider this for a moment.  You know how excited we get over Elvis sightings!  Just think of the bedlam and pandemonium there would be every time someone saw the Resurrected Christ on earth!  He would be mobbed, just like some of the accounts we have in Holy Scripture and some might even try to forcibly take Jesus and make Him Our King, even though you and I know that He already is!  On these two reasons alone, it was imperative that Jesus ascend into Heaven.  

But there’s more – a lot more to the Ascension than just that.  And I bet you didn’t realize that you yourselves, here this morning have already proclaimed the importance of Our Lord’s Ascension into Heaven.  Turn with me again to hymn number 103 and the words of Bishop Christopher Wordsworth and follow along in the third stanza with me,

Thou hast raised our human nature On the clouds to God’s right hand:

There we sit in heavn’ly places, There with thee in glory stand.

Jesus reigns, adored by angels; Man with God is on the throne;

Mighty Lord, in thine ascension, We by faith behold our own.

“Man with God is on the throne.”  Humans with God on His throne?!?!?!  Isn’t that one of the greatest blasphemous and Pelagian heresies we have ever heard?  Out of context it might be.  But when considered, it is orthodox Catholic truth that Bishop Wordsworth wrote in that stanza of his great hymn; for in Jesus Christ, His Divine and Human natures were made One person.  When Jesus ascended, He didn’t split His personality in two and leave the human portion here on earth and take just His Divine nature back into Heaven.  No.  He took all of Himself – Divine and Human.  Even now, at God’s right Hand He is there and retains His Divine-ness and Human-ness in One Person.  This is how Jesus remains Our great High Priest – able to sympathize with our human sinfulness and needs and intercede to the Father on our behalf.  Because Jesus has taken His glorified Human Nature into Heaven, we too are able to discern and begin to see our eternal destination.  But lest we base our salvation on the words of a Victorian hymn, what have the Church Fathers to say of such a claim as this?  To this we turn to a sermon of St. Augustine who said,

“Who was carried up to heaven?  The Lord Christ was.  Who is the Lord Christ?  He is the Lord Jesus.  What is this?  Are you going to separate the human from the divine and make one person of God, another of the man, so that there is no longer a trinity of three but a quaternary of four?  Just as you, a  human being, are soul and body, so the Lord Jesus Christ is Word and body. . . .That is to say, the very flesh, the very body, about which he was speaking when he said to the Apostles, “Feel, and see that a spirit does not have bones and flesh, as you can see that I have.”  Let us believe this, brothers and sisters, and if we have difficulty in meeting the arguments of the philosophers, let us hold on to what demonstrated in Our Lord’s case without any difficulty of faith.

Let them chatter, but let us believe.”(  Sermon 242.6.)

St. Leo the Great also speaks of this same fact when he said,

“It was certainly a great and indescribable source of joy when, in the sight of the heavenly multitudes, the nature of our human race ascended over the dignity of all heavenly creatures.  It passed the angelic orders and was raised beyond the heights of archangels.  In its ascension, our human race did not stop at any other height until this same human nature was received at the seat of the eternal Father.  Our human nature, united with the Divinity of God’s Son, was on the throne of His Glory.  (Sermon 73. 3-4.)

This is the truth and the power of the Ascension of Our Lord.  The same flesh and blood which Our Lord took upon Himself at the moment of His Incarnation in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the same glorified Body with which He now ascends into Heaven.  He did not shed His human-ness in order to ascend.  He took it with Him and by that fact assures us of our final and eternal destination if we would but believe.  So the Ascension secures for us the inseparableness we have with God; through the Resurrected, Glorified, and Ascended Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ and His with all of humanity, infused now, with His eternal presence by God the Holy Ghost.  By the power of the Ascension, Our Lord’s Manhood, being  transformed and transfigured by His Glorious Resurrection is bound eternally with ours and us to God and confers upon us the immediate access we have to God the Father through the Holy Spirit which Christ renews with us each time we receive His Blessed Body and Blood at the Mass in which Jesus makes for us the eternal priestly Sacrifice to God the Father on our behalf.  Jesus has ascended into Heaven, but will never leave us.  He has gone to make it so, that where He is, thither we might also ascend and reign with Him in Glory.  For where Jesus is right now, by His Father’s side in Heaven, is the final destination of every Christian believer.  While we still labour here on earth, the way might be difficult at times.  So difficult, in fact, that we might want to give – and we may give up if only briefly from time to time.  But when we worship at that Altar and we lift up our hearts in Eucharistic adoration, we send our innermost and best being, body and soul, on ahead to the place that we will spend eternity with God.  Jesus’ Ascension, second only to His Resurrection at Easter, has now secured our place, eternally, in Heaven, so that where Jesus is, there we may be also.  Thanks be to God!  Let us pray.

O Lord Jesus Christ, Who after Thy Resurrection didst manifestly appear to Thine Apostles, and in their sight didst ascend into heaven to prepare a place for us:  grant that, being risen with Thee, we may lift up our hearts continually to see Thee where Thou art, and never cease to serve Thee faithfully here on earth; until at last, when Thou comest again, Thou shalt receive us unto Thyself; Who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end.  Amen.

And now, unto God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost be ascribed all might, majesty, power, and dominion as is most justly due this day both now and forever; world without end.  Amen.

SOLI DEO GLORIA - JEU+