Ascension Sunday (Luke 24:46-53)

A number of years ago the late Pope John Paul II issued a document called Dominus Jesu, in which he stated clearly and unambiguously that Jesus Christ was the one unique mediator between God and man. This document caused outrage among many people who thought it was undercutting ecumenism and reduced a healthy pluralism in the Church. Go figure! Frankly, how could the Pope have said anything else about Jesus remains a mystery to me.

Man- male and female, you and me, are meant for heaven. God created us out of love to share with Him eternal life and the joys of heaven. Today’s feast of the Ascension is all about that.

In the play, Hamlet, Shakespeare, has Hamlet say, “What a piece of work is man.” You may have very well said the same thing at some point!

Many of you have seen Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of the Christ. It’s a very graphic and powerful movie and scholars have said it accurately portrayed what happened to Christ. After Jesus had been scourged with the cat-of-nine-tails, crowned with thorns and barely able to stand, Pilate showed Him to the crowd and said, “Behold the Man.” Our Lord, wounded and tortured was what man looks like as a result of sin. Christ’s ascension into heaven as a reward for the humiliation of the Cross. Like Pilate, today we can say, “Behold the Man” of the risen and ascended Savior. This is what we were all created to be and to do.

The Gospels don’t say much about the ascension but its purpose is obvious. In St. Luke’s description of the event, (which we read today) Christ gives his friends a blessing, explains that he had to suffer and be raised from the dead so that in his name repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:46-48).

In the Resurrected Jesus we see man as he is supposed to be; as God created us to be. In the ascension we see Christ in his human nature standing at the right hand of the Father. Jesus didn’t go to heaven to leave us here alone on earth without his help. Instead, his ascension gives us hope because we know that we are also called to go there.

Jesus is our role model. He is the standard we are to live up to. When we die He will judge us as to how well we have lived up to the standards he has given us. And Jesus does everything possible to help us come to be like him- including offering us the cross, so that we may, as St. Paul tells us, learn obedience. This Jesus, who submitted to the unjust judgment of Jewish Sanhedrin and the Roman Governor, will, in his humanity judge the whole human race. And, the standard for his judgment will be how well we have chosen to become like Him- to be selfless and how well we have chosen the good.

Jesus constantly works to help us become more free. Free to be choose the good by being loving and compassionate. He gives us the Church and the sacraments. He becomes present on the altar at Mass so that we might become what we eat and by understanding that as He gives himself to us, we are to give ourselves back to Him and to others.

Because we believe that Christ is with us in the sacrifice of the Mass and in the Church, ours is not a pie-in-the-sky religion where our concern and desire for heaven replaces our interest in the practical things of the earth. As Christians we must be involved in what goes on around us. We are called to make the world a better place by living out our vocation. By doing our best at whatever job we are doing and by using whatever gifts God has given us to bring forth His Kingdom on earth.

In the Acts of the Apostles (our first reading) the angels said to the Apostles after Christ ascended, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into 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.”

In fact Christ will come again at the end of time. We must prepare ourselves for this by striving to live a virtuous life- by trying to model ourselves after Christ. Jesus told us that the Holy Spirit would help us. Our every action in the present moment can become an occasion for the renewal of the whole human race. When this renewal happens then the earthly man made old by sin will through God’s grace, become young again. Then we will be able to say about each other, “Behold the man” newly created by Christ; what a piece of work.