Ascension Sunday 2023
From The Pastor
In the Lent-Easter cycle of the dying and rising of Jesus, the Feast of the Ascension reflects the conclusion of the Lord’s time on earth. As the first Advocate sent by the Father, Jesus has accomplished all he was sent to do. The material/physical time of Jesus on earth in the flesh is over. At the Ascension, Jesus ascends to the Father as Lord of all creation. No longer limited by a physical temporal existence, the risen Christ is now present in every particle of creation as Lord and Redeemer over all that is. This is what it means for Jesus to be the cosmic Christ. God, through the Incarnation, life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus has sanctified all created matter. This essential work of redemption will one day come to perfect fruition in union with God at the end of time.
It is with this understanding that the Feast of the Ascension is one of hope. Why? Because God has accomplished in the person of Jesus the work of redemption for which we all long. The critical point here is our faith and trust in the Lord Jesus, whom the Father sent, and in whom we believe. To believe is to unite ourselves with the Lord in our desire to share in the promise of eternal life. On Tuesday of this past week, we read from the Acts of the Apostles when Paul and Silas, after being whipped with a rod, were freed from their chained imprisonment after an earthquake. The jailer, terrified that his charges had escaped, attempted to kill himself. St. Paul stops him. The man comes to faith asking, “What must I do to be saved.” Paul simply replies, “Believe in the Lord Jesus.” The man came to faith and his whole household were baptized.
In the trauma of persecution, Paul and Silas clung to their faith in Jesus who died and rose from the dead as Lord of all creation. They clung to the hope and promise of the One who died and rose again to give life to all who believe. This is the hope celebrated in the Ascension. Hope is not a conclusion. Hope is the anticipated trust that what is promised and longed for will come to fruition. As Jesus ascends to the heavens his final words to the disciples were to go forth and teach in his name, baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Humanly, this seems to me to be a great tension. Jesus is going into glory, while the disciples are left in the temporal reality of their earthly existence. Though filled and animated with the Holy Spirit, consider the fear, doubt, confusion, and uncertainty these early believers felt. They loved Jesus yet hated to see him leave them on their own. How were they to step beyond their fear and uncertainty to put into action all Jesus had asked of them? Embracing every hope of the Risen Christ, it seems to me that the Feast of the Ascension is a feast of The Holy Tension. What is the holy tension? It is the already and the not yet. We are already redeemed in the dying and the rising of Jesus; however, we have not yet seen or realized its fullness. We are called to hope while we bear with the trials and tensions of evil and disorder of the world.
This is why I used the example of Paul and Silas. They were suffering physical pain from being whipped and then chained to a stake in jail. Their response? To pray and praise the name and the power of Jesus. That is hope, grounded in faith and secure with trust. They were grasped by the hope of life after death in the model of Jesus who rose from the dead. They loved Jesus and encountered him in a living and confirming way. They fully expected to die and rise with Him.
What about our time? Today’s feast cannot simply be a day on the calendar that fills the liturgical schedule. Like Paul and Silas in their time, we must face the challenges and tensions of our time. The disorder of evil and injustice was evident in the time of Jesus and remains equally evident now. Fortunately, we are not likely to face physical persecution or imprisonment. Nonetheless, we are faced with the fear and confusion of an increasingly secular culture that resists and critically denies the faith we hold.
As people of faith called to give effective witness to the gospel and the person of Jesus, how do we face the tensions of our time? People are anxious and worried about politics, inflation, debt ceiling, world economy, and a multitude of other social ills. In the holy tension of sin and grace, with confident trust in the promise of the Risen Lord, we hold fast to all we profess. Ours is a powerful time of rich opportunity and challenge to pray and praise the Lord despite the tensions of evil and the divisions that surround us.
Isn’t this the call of the Ascension of the Lord? It is ours to live in the holy tension of the already and the not yet. Too many people are ready to say God is not here, God is not present, God is not trustworthy, God is not doing his part, God doesn’t listen to me. This is exactly the lie and confusion the devil leads us to believe. Ours is to trust Christ as we tenaciously cling to the fruit of our redemption and the glory promised in heaven. Christ is all over this world like white on rice and the sin of evil and its chaos will not prevail. Ask for the grace to see God’s action.
Be a part of the solution. Cling to Christ and all he has accomplished on our behalf. In him the promise of heaven is assured. Pray and praise the Lord in the face of every trial. He has risen from the dead and where he has gone, we will one day follow as he promised. Be at peace. Your redemption is accomplished in Jesus.
Father John Esper
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