Ascension of the Lord – Cycle C
Acts 1: 1-11; Ephesians 1: 17-23;
Luke
24: 46-53
In
today's Gospel, Luke says of Jesus, “As he blessed them he parted
from them and was taken up to heaven” (Luke 24:51). The account
from Acts paints of picture of Jesus rising into the clouds as the
apostles stare at the bottoms of his feet.
For
years I believed that this feast day was all about the risen Jesus
leaving his earthly home for the last time to forever sit at the
right hand of the Father. But maturity has brought me a deeper
understanding of the Ascension. Since today is Mother's Day, I'll
illustrate my point with a Mom story.
One
day my mother was getting ready to go to the grocery. She was
searching all over the house for something, and getting angrier by
the minute. My brother finally asked, “What are you looking for?”
She
was looking for her sunglasses. At that point we busted out
laughing. The sunglasses weren't lost - they were perched on the top
of her head the whole time!
And
so it was with Jesus and the early church. The early Christians
spent a lot of time looking up at the clouds for Christ. The first
followers believed that Jesus would return soon – perhaps even
before those who knew him firsthand had died. There is a legend that
at early Eucharistic celebrations, someone was appointed – probably
the deacon – to go outside during the celebration and see if Christ
had returned. Gradually, the church learned to focus on building up
the Kingdom of God here on earth rather than looking expectantly
toward the heavens.
We
can learn something from the missing sunglasses as well. One of the
non-canonical sayings of Jesus states, “A person who sees his
brother (or sister) sees God.” In other words, we should be
searching for Christ in each other rather than looking for him
somewhere else. When we turn to each other in the sign of peace, we
are turning to Christ.
And
what of the poor and the suffering in our community? Do we see them
as the sunglasses we are seeking? I am not talking about an abstract
group of people, but of the people who are close to us in our
everyday lives: those enduring the poverty of loneliness, of boredom,
of emptiness, of seeming abandonment in our nursing homes. Do we
seek them out, or do we continue our fruitless search?
Sometimes
we look for Christ in the heavens when all this time he has been
lying lost and forgotten in the darkness of the poor and the
suffering.
How
then do we gain the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that we may
come to know God? All of the readings today speak of power. In
Acts, Jesus says, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit
comes upon you” (1:8). Paul's letter to the Ephesians refers to
“the surpassing greatness of [God's] power for us who believe, ...
which he worked in Christ, raising him from the dead and seating him
at the right hand in the heavens” (1:19). Finally in Luke, Jesus
tells his disciples to “stay in the city until you are clothed with
power from on high” (24:49).
What
an awesome thought – that same power that raised Jesus from the
dead and took him into heaven is operating among us. This power is
the power of God's love. Without it, we cannot care for those who
need our care. We cannot love fully or completely on our own. It is
only by tapping into the great reservoir of God's love that we can do
this.
The
author Annie Dillard, who became Catholic several years ago, put
forth the notion that we Christians are like children playing on the
floor with our chemistry sets, making TNT. We have access to a power
more awesome than dynamite. If we were to fully unleash the power of
God's love, the world would be forever changed.
Yesterday
our second graders received their first taste of that power in the
Eucharist. Let us come now to the table of the Lord and be nourished
again by that great power of God's love so that we may see Christ not
only in the heavens, but in our midst.
Deacon Darryl J. Diemer
Ascension of the Lord
May 12, 2013
Painting: Ascension by Rembrandt, 1636
