In our first reading today, we hear that after rising from the dead on Easter morning, Christ reveals he is alive through “many proofs” and spends forty days with the apostles “speaking to them about the kingdom of God.”
Take a moment to imagine the indescribable joy they must have felt! The apostles had placed all their hope in Christ as they followed him during his earthly ministry, and were crushed when he was put to death. They had likely become convinced that they had wasted their time, having been misled by someone claiming to be the Messiah. But now their beloved teacher had returned from the dead, proving that he was trustworthy. So many of the teachings that had originally seemed obscure were now cast in a new light. They were able to look back on all their time with him in the past with fresh insight, and enjoy their time with him in the present with gratitude.
Evidently the apostles thought that this would be the moment when Christ would make all things right again, would overthrow the cruel oppression of the Roman Empire and restore Israel to its former glory. Death itself had been dealt a decisive blow, Jesus had been vindicated, and so now would be the time to establish a kingdom. “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” they ask. But Jesus once again confounds them. Not only does he refuse to answer their question, but he also indicates that their hopes are too small: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you,” he says, “and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Not just Israel, but the whole world will be restored—and the apostles will be the ones to proclaim this very good news.
And then as they were still scratching their heads, “he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight.” They stood there, dumbfounded, staring at the sky for who knows how long, until an angel appeared to them to say “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.” One day in the future, Christ will come down from heaven again. But until then, there is work to do—work stretching to the ends of the earth.
Some of you might be wondering, as I once did, why we celebrate this moment. Why is Christ disappearing into the sky worthy of celebration? Why not just wait to celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost instead? This seems much more exciting, and frankly, much more applicable to our daily lives. I want to provide at least a part of the answer to that very good question today: we celebrate the ascension because it reveals something about Christ and because it reveals something about us.
First, the ascension reveals something about Christ.
Throughout his earthly ministry, the people who interacted with Jesus encountered familiarity interspersed with real strangeness. Like any other human being, Jesus was born (this is familiar)—but he was born of a virgin (this is strange). Jesus grew up like many other children—but at one point snuck away from his parents to teach religious leaders several times his age at the Temple in Jerusalem. Jesus lived an obscure, private life of blue collar work—until he spent three years in public ministry saying the strangest things about the coming reign of God, things which eventually got him killed. Jesus died on a Roman cross like a common criminal—and yet, three days later, he rose again from the dead.
Through his ascension, Christ makes some more sense of his strangeness by revealing once again his divine origin, identity, and authority. By ascending into heaven, Christ shows he truly came from heaven—that is, from God. In telling the disciples, “you will be my witnesses,” Christ reminds them that he is God. In ascending to heaven, Christ took his place at the right hand of the throne of God, with authority over all creation and a desire to bring all things into union with himself. We heard the apostle Paul describe this in our second reading today: “The one who descended [Christ] is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.” We celebrate the ascension to remember the moment when Christ assumed his throne.
But the ascension of Christ also reveals something about us.
On the day of his ascension, Christ foretold the coming of the Holy Spirit, saying “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses.” It is the Holy Spirit who gives us spiritual gifts in order to be witnesses to Christ. Paul lists a few of these gifts: “And he gave some as apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers.” If these words fail to bring up any clear images for you, think of the man who has an extraordinary ability to capture the attention and imagination of children with his knack for storytelling, the woman who radiates calm during the most stressful work day, the person whose difficult life has, seemingly against all odds, made them gentle and compassionate rather than bitter and resentful. These, too, are spiritual gifts.
These spiritual gifts are given to us for a greater purpose than our own satisfaction; they are given to us, as Paul writes, “to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” Those who belong to Christ are so united with him that they form a part of his body. As we obey Christ’s command to be his witnesses, his body grows; we are able to share the indescribable joy of knowing Christ, and this joy is contagious.
We celebrate the ascension of Christ today because it reveals the divine origin of our gifts, our identity as the body of Christ, the authority we have been given to be his witnesses, and our mission to “go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.”
Christ has ascended into heaven and left us, his body, to be his physical representatives on earth, until the moment when he comes down from heaven again at the end of time. This might sound a bit extreme, but the fact is that we are the only physical expression of Christ left on the earth until then—which means we have a responsibility to represent and express him to the world. This is put beautifully by a poem attributed to St. Teresa of Avila, perhaps shockingly titled “Christ Has No Body”:
Christ has no body but yours,
no hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
So the question becomes, if we are truly the body of Christ, how might we act like it? Of course, we can be his mouth, proclaiming the good news with words; the work of preaching is incredibly important, and all followers of Christ are called to speak of their faith in some capacity! But there is more to be done. Perhaps you could take this poem as a starting point for your own reflection on your calling. You could do a little fill in the blank: “Yours are the [blank] with which he [blank].” Maybe yours are the arms with which he embraces someone going through the pain of losing a loved one. Maybe yours are the ears with which he listens to someone who does not need solutions, but just a friend. Maybe yours is the working car with which he gives someone a ride to the doctor’s office, or the home cooked meal with which he nourishes a family in need, or the cash and directions to the nearest food bank that he hands to the unhoused person at the intersection.
Christ has ascended into heaven and assumed his throne; he has left you, a member of his body, to represent him. How might you be his witness?