Jesus is Near to Us
Ascension Sunday
The Ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ into Heaven marks the momentous event during which our human nature, assumed by the Divine nature of Christ, was brought into glory and elevated to a special place in Heaven, i.e., the right hand of the Father. It is very easy for us to want to cling to our senses and believe that this means we no longer see and feel Jesus’s earthly presence. The truth is quite the opposite. Christ’s Ascension into Heaven allows for His presence to be made manifest in a different way to all of us; and He will achieve this in the lives of His apostles and our lives through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Even the apostles didn’t quite understand what was happening, which prompted Christ to say to them “but you will receive power when the holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The apostles still anticipated the restoration of the glorious socio-political kingdom of Israel, akin to the reign of King David. Yet, Christ was here inaugurating His kingdom in a vastly different manner.
“Until now, the Law has held sway among the Jews. It is the Father's will that the reign of the Gospel extend as widely as the world extends” (Erasmus of Rotterdam). Christ was about to pour forth the Spirit of God in manner hitherto unthinkable. God was going to write His law upon the very souls of man. Christ was going to reign on earth, but instead of a centralized physical locus, His Heavenly Ascension meant He would reign in the hearts of all men, and therefore would never leave them.
This was the hope the apostles had. They weren’t in despair when Jesus ascended. Instead, they had hope, for “They were then certain that the Crucified-Risen One was alive and that in him God's gates, the gates of eternal life, had been opened to humanity forever” (Pope Benedict XVI).
When the Psalmist therefore writes that “the LORD, the Most High, is to be feared, the great king over all the earth” (Psalm 47:3), it is because we know that His kingdom is unlike any the world has seen before. Rather than a sociopolitical kingdom, Christ has a sacramental kingdom! Rather than a physical kingdom, Christ has a metaphysical kingdom! Rather than a material kingdom, he reigns on high over a mystical, transcendent, universal kingdom the likes of which the world has never seen!
This is what prompts Paul to write that, in His Ascension,“[God] put all things beneath [Christ’s] feet and gave him as head over all things to the church” (Ephesians 1:22). The entire obediential act of Christ’s saving work has earned Him, in His human nature, the right to rule over humanity in a way that no other man could ever claim! So, though He is veiled from us, He is more present to us than our inmost being! Though He is hidden from our senses, He is truly the ONLY Lord and King over all the world!
If that wasn’t glorious enough, “Christ's Ascension marks the definitive entrance of Jesus' humanity into God's heavenly domain, whence he will come again (cf. Acts 1:11); this humanity in the meantime hides him from the eyes of men (cf. Col 3:3)” (CCC 665). Our human nature, the very one we possess right now, has been elevated by Christ to Heavenly dignity and glory! There is a true divine, Heavenly, submile, beatific dignity to our human nature that is awaiting fulfillment! Our lives couldn’t POSSIBLY be meaningless in the face of this truth! Each of us is endowed with the mystery of a teleology (an end) that is positively, undeniably Heavenly! This is our true inheritance and heritage, and we are free to accept or reject it.
It is precisely this reason that prompts Christ to commission us, “Go and teach all nations, says the Lord; I am with you always, until the end of the world” (Matt 28:19-20). Elsewhere in Mark’s Gospel, those words are repeated as, “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). Earth is our place of sojourn, Heaven is our home — and Christ wants that invitation home extended to all mankind, that His Father’s house may be full. He wants you and me home with Him; and He wants us to bring many others home with us!
While He will never force His Heavenly reign on anyone, Christ does desire for all mankind to come to know His saving power and to be converted. It is incumbent upon you and me to go into all the world proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ because His reign is now eternal, and all of us will stand judgment before Him one day.
This news is a message of great hope for us. For those of us blessed to answer this call and accept the great Gospel of Jesus’s triumph over sin and death, His reign becomes a living spring of salvation and life within our souls. Christ reigns from Heaven by reigning in our very hearts. “Being seated at the Father's right hand signifies the inauguration of the Messiah’s kingdom… After this event, the apostles became witnesses of the ‘kingdom [that] will have no end’” (CCC 664).
He is truly the anointed Messiah. His Kingdom will never end. And this is a source of endless hope that amidst the worst trials we could possibly endure in a tumultuous world, Jesus Christ is Lord, King, and God. For those of us who live as heirs of His kingdom, covenant children of the Father, covenant brothers and sisters of our Lord Jesus, so long as we live lives worthy of this great call, our final encounter with Him will be one of returning home into the arms of our beloved. We will not fear the judgment seat; instead, we long to be intimately one with Him again.
Christ’s Ascension becomes the great forerunning testimony to the hope of our own eventual resurrection from the dead and reigning alongside Him in eternal life. Let us live in the great joy of that hope. May the Ascended Christ ever transform us into His own magnificent divine life.
Deus Benedicat