This Sunday, Jesus Leaves Us In Charge But Not Alone; 5 Ascension Takeaways

On the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, the Reading and Gospel are both by St. Luke, and they explain each other.

In the First Reading, from his Book of Acts, Luke says that he wrote his Gospel to cover “all that Jesus did and taught.” And in the Gospel reading, Luke gives a preview of his Book of Acts, which will tell the tale of how “repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in [Christ’s] name to all nations.”

It is crucial that we see how we fit into each story. Here are five takeaways from Sunday Readings columns at this site and the Extraordinary Story podcast.

First: The story we hear in Sunday’s readings is so fundamental, it has invaded many of our favorite tales.

You can see the lesson of the Ascension in the Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy, who thinks a magical wizard will solve her problems, learns that she has to find the solutions herself. You see it in Luke Skywalker, who wants to be rescued from the mundane life of his farm only to discover that he has to be the hero to rescue the world from a great enemy.

And you see it in the Lord of the Rings where the hobbit Frodo has to learn to accept his great calling to face off against the world’s greatest evil.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me back up.

Second takeaway: The first important thing we have to do is avoid the mistakes the Apostles made.

In the First Reading, the Apostles make two key mistakes about the Ascension.

They gather together around Jesus at the mount of Ascension and ask him “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” That is their first mistake: They think God will change this world through political power.

Then Jesus is “lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight” and they make their second mistake: they stare at the place where he used to be. Two angels appear and ask the Apostles, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky?” This is the mistake of thinking that this world is so hopelessly broken that what we really need is to escape it, to leave the world’s mess behind forever.

With one mistake, the apostles expect Jesus to fix all of their troubles, here and now, for them. With the second mistake, they expect Jesus to take them away from the world’s troubles, so they can leave them behind forever.

But God’s will for us is not political power or supernatural escape.

Third: Jesus gives the Apostles a third option, a synthesis of the two mistakes.

The 19th century German philosopher Hegel is associated with the idea that every successful solution comes from the resolution of two opposite extremes. If the thesis of one party is that people should be given total freedom and the other party proposes the antithesis of that, that the people should be strictly controlled, the way out is to synthesize the two ideas into a new idea of ordered liberty.

We see this play out again and again in life, in small ways and large.

With the apostles, we start with the thesis that Jesus should correct nature’s imperfections and give us a trouble-free existence here on earth. Then, we propose the anthesis, that God should deliver us from the troubles of the world altogether. Ascension Day gives us a synthesis: He tells them to “stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

Jesus’s followers will both address the problems of this earth, and experience a separate, supernatural life — both, together.

As the Second Reading, from St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, puts it, Jesus does wield the ultimate power, “far above every principality, authority, power and dominion” with “all things beneath his feet.” But he makes us responsible for carrying out his program, “As head over all things to the church, which is his body.”

He uses his great power to help us act, not to dominate the world or escape it, but to invite it into a relationship with him that transforms it.

Fourth: Far from being a burden, the unfinished world is God’s great gift.

From the very beginning, God’s plan was to put his beloved creatures in charge of his creation. In the story of creation in Genesis, Adam and Eve are told to till and keep his garden, to name the animals, to be fruitful and multiply, and in this way bring the world to perfection, doing God’s will “on earth as it is in heaven.”

When that fell apart because of our disobedience, God launched a rescue mission, as described in this Sunday’s readings, and tells his children, “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth,” but only after they first “receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.”

This means that we are neither prisoners in a painful world, nor fugitives from it, escaping into heaven — we are God’s own ambassadors, establishing the kingdom of God on earth in Christ’s place and through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Fifth: In other words, we are like Dorothy, or Luke Skywalker, or Frodo.

Both Dorothy and Luke Skywalker had to learn to face the unknown with the gifts they were given. Frodo the hobbit had to learn the same thing in The Lord of the Rings.

“I wish none of this had happened,” he tells the Gandalf as they are setting out on their quest to restore order to Middle Earth.

“So do all who live to see such times,” Gandalf answers. “But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

The good news is that he do not face evil  alone. Gandalf tells Frodo, “There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides the will of evil.”

That is the position we are in on Ascension Day. We hoped that Jesus would eliminate the problems that plague us in this world. But that won’t happen. Or we hoped that we could just be taken away to a supernatural fantasyland. That’s out too.

Instead, we are sent on a journey to restore peace, love and understanding in God’s name to a wounded world. This is the great adventure of our life, and we can take enormous satisfaction in the fact that we don’t do it alone.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus tells us, “It is better that I go, for if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you.” We have the Holy Spirit as our partner in this great work. And at every Mass, and in every tabernacle we see the way Jesus fulfills his Ascension promise: “Behold I am with you till the end of the age.”

By Tom Hoopes