Today the Church celebrates the Risen Lord’s Ascension into heaven, exactly 40 days after Easter Sunday…the exact number of days we prepared during the season of Lent for Easter’s arrival. Having been venturing away from what Pope Francis calls our “tomb psychology”—looking for Jesus in the tomb we’ve made of our lives—and emerging from the dark, dank night of comfortable deception inside the tomb into the clear light of uncomfortable truth beyond it, today’s first reading reminds us we also shouldn’t waste our time practicing a “telescope faith” by looking for the Risen Lord in the sky.
We were told that following the Risen Lord’s ascension into Heaven, two men dressed in white garments stood beside the disciples and said:
Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.
While this moment marked the definitive departure of the Risen Lord from Earth and His disciples, “sleepy” Catholics take this moment to mean that Jesus will return at the eschaton by descending from Heaven. At that time, the Risen Lord will claim his kingdom and separate those who belong to it—the “sheep” (“WOKE” Catholics)—from those who don’t—the “goats” (“sleepy” Catholics). Hedging their bets, “sleepy” Catholics take solace from what they wrongly believe is the fac that Jesus hasn’t yet returned, affording them plenty of time to turn away from the darkness of sin before Jesus returns in the light of the eschaton.
What “sleepy” Catholics conveniently overlook is what this moment teaches: Jesus’ ascension into Heaven constitutes the end of the mission the God the Father entrusted to His only begotten Son and the beginning of the continuation of that mission for Jesus’ disciples in every generation, moving forward from that moment. In short, the presence of the Risen Lord in the world is mediated by his disciples—those “WOKE” Catholics who believe in Him and announce His gospel to the ends of the earth…until the Risen Lord’s return at the end eschaton when time runs out.
Ascension Thursday is the final chapter of the book of the life on Earth of God’s only begotten Son. We listened to the first chapter on Christmas Eve when Isaiah prophesied “They will name him ‘Emmanuel,’ which means ‘God is with us’.” Today, we listened to the final chapter when the Risen Lord told his disciples “I am with you every day, until the end of the world.” To His disciples the Risen Lord has entrusted the immense task of evangelizing the world, beginning first in marriage, extending into the family and home, and then beyond the home to the ends of the earth. Making the good news that “God is with us” accessible to others—in their good times and in bad, in their health and in sickness, and whether they’re rich or the poor—is the evangelical mission we have been entrusted in this generation.
Today’s scripture readings invite us to understand better that great dignity and responsibility the Risen Lord has entrusted to us—what represents our greatest honor—as this generation’s baptized and confirmed disciples. It’s to time not to be “sleepy” but “WOKE” knowing that success isn’t dependent upon our strength and power, our organizational skills and programs, or our talents and human resources. No, success depends entirely upon the Risen Lord’s promise that He will be with us every day, until the end of the world.
This Ascension Thursday, let us commit ourselves not to practice a “telescope faith” looking upward to Heaven to see the Risen Lord returning to Earth from Heaven where He sits at the right hand of God the Father. Instead, let us recall that the Risen Lord returns to his disciples today in exactly the same way he left his original band of disciples: As we contemplate our great honor and responsibility and enthusiastically and courageously witness to the fundamental tenet of our faith that “God is with us” as “WOKE” Catholics who devote themselves each day to proclaim the gospel by being Emmanuel for others.
As Jesus told his disciples before ascending to Heaven:
You are witnesses of these things….Go and teach all nations, says the Lord; I am with you always, until the end of the world.
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