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Homily, Ascension of the Lord Jesus

Homily, Ascension of the Lord Jesus
Speaker:
May 13, 2024
in
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From The Pastor

The pinnacle feasts of the Christian year, the Resurrection of Jesus, the Ascension, and Pentecost can seem beyond time. They can seem unreachable and intangible except to the deepest believers. This is not the case. The Resurrection of Jesus opens the path for our redemption, while the Ascension of Jesus reveals his return to Divine glory. The feast of Pentecost in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is the empowerment of Divine love given to all believers who seek to live the way of Jesus.

These are spiritual realities made present in the world by the gift of God through the Incarnation, life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus. The purpose and the meaning of Christ is to unite humanity and all creation to God through the reconciliation of the Cross. These spiritual realities of Divine self-giving cannot be quantified, packaged, or made tangible outside the evidence of human love and compassion shared in the name and person of Christ. A steady diet of catechism and theology will not a good Christian make. The Divine realities revealed in the life of Jesus must become real in our lived, felt, and encountered experience. Actions, relationships, and encounters of love reveal the presence and the action of God.

The Resurrection of Jesus is a spiritual reality that reveals new life in the power of love shared. It cannot simply be a religious event celebrated once a year as a commemoration of our faith in Jesus as our Christ and Lord. Easter and Resurrection are not simply a season in the life of the Church, but a way of life. A life that imitates the example and the gospel values lived by Jesus. Resurrection becomes a surrendered life of love for God and others realized and expressed in real life encounters.

Redemption is also a living reality. It is the active and experienced liberation of forgiveness, acceptance, and mercy that draws the believer to a restored and personal relationship with God. Joyful hope and gratitude is our best response. The redemption of Christ is full and eternal in the evidence of the Crucified One now risen and among us. This does not mean we will not feel the pain and tension of sin that leads to guilt and discouragement. It does mean that when we fall, we can get up, return to God, repent, accept forgiveness, and begin again.

Perhaps the feast of the Ascension is the hardest to grasp. It may appear to be a goodbye to Jesus whose work is accomplished who now returns to the glory of heaven. Not exactly. The Ascension is a new beginning into the age of the Holy Spirit. Jesus shared with the disciples his return to the Father as he receives the Father’s glory. We are told to rejoice for the Father is greater than He. What does this mean? Jesus is the glory of the Father as he reveals to the world all that the Father is through his life, suffering, death, and Resurrection. Who or what is the Father? The essence and fullness of Divine love who creates in love, redeems in love through the Son, and unites all in the Godhead through the love of the Holy Spirit.

This is the mystical or most deeply spiritual movement of Christ. As the Lord Jesus ascends to the heavens, his essence as the Divine Son is infused in every particle of creation. In him, with him, and through him all is redeemed, reconciled, and returned to the Father. As Jesus, the human-Divine One, ascends to heaven, we ascend with him. In the person of Jesus our place in heaven is assured. Jesus, having shared in our humanity, invites us to share in his Divinity. How does this happen?

The Father, as promised by Jesus, sends the Holy Spirit. In the Sacrament of Baptism, we are initiated into Christ as we receive the Holy Spirit. In the Spirit, we live in Christ and Christ lives in us. It is the Holy Spirit who draws us to faith in Jesus and empowers us to imitate his life. To imitate the life of Jesus is to live in a freely chosen love-directed life. This love will have as many faces as there are people in the world. Each of us in our own way and state of life are called to make evident the love of Christ through the way we live and interact with others.

In the hardship and challenges of life, the Christian mystery is often questioned against the sadness of sin experienced in an endless flow of violence, injustice, war, and any number of other evils. Yet, the mystery and the truth of God remains. Love wins. Evil will not triumph. Christ is Redeemer, Lord, and King given dominion, power, and authority over all that is.

Christ remains present and active in every human circumstance, dark as they may seem. The Resurrection of Jesus and the redemption it won for us has happened, is happening, and will come to its fulfillment. This is the meaning of the Christ. The more we as believers make Resurrection and redemption a living reality in our lives, the sooner our heavenly fulfillment will come. In anticipation of Pentecost, pray to be touched by the Holy Spirit.

 

Father John Esper

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