Sister Elise Saggau
Remember when Ascension Thursday was a holy day of obligation? Remember what a holy day of obligation was? One of the many liturgical changes we have seen in our times is the shift of the celebration of the Ascension of the Lord from Thursday to Sunday. Presumably, this was done so that more Christian people would be able to go to Mass on this significant feast day, since Thursday is a full workday for most people. In our diocese, as in many others, Ascension Thursday has now become Ascension Sunday. Necessarily, this shift causes the loss of an aspect of the story that many scripture people seem to love. Luke specifies in Acts that the Ascension took place 40 days after the Resurrection. Though the number 40 does not, in fact, seem to carry any great significance, it somehow feels meaningful scripturally. One remembers that, in the days of Noah, God let it rain for 40 days and 40 nights to flood and cleanse the earth. God let the Israelites wander in the desert for 40 years before they got to the Promised Land. Jesus fasted in the desert for 40 days before beginning his public ministry. Maybe 40 simply means a pretty long time.
Be that as it may, we now celebrate, on the seventh Sunday of Easter, Christ’s leaving his original disciples in a quite definitive way. After this, no more appearances in the body. The Ascension brings symbolically to a close the remarkable and unique first-hand experiences that his followers had of Jesus after the Resurrection. The Jesus the disciples had known in his full humanity, the exciting bringer of peace and good news, the one they thought might be the Messiah, the one they hoped might restore the kingdom to Israel—that one seems to be really GONE this time! But Luke observes that they all obediently leave the mountain and return to the upper room to await further developments. They vaguely understood that something even better was on the way.
One commentator has tried to illuminate this event by telling a story about Lech Wałęsa, who for many years worked as an electrician in the Gdansk shipyards in Poland. During those years, Wałęsa became the leader of the “Solidarity” movement, which he had helped found. This brought them into conflict with the communist leaders. We know that the Polish workers won out and eventually the communist regime collapsed in Poland. In 1990, Wałęsa, the shipyard worker, became the first president of a free and democratic Poland. His fellow workers were delighted. But they were also sad. It would change forever the way they related to him. In a very real sense, they were losing him as they had known him. However, their hopes were high. They believed, and rightly so, that he would help them and his whole country from his new and more influential position. And we know he did exactly that. Perhaps, on the feast of the Ascension, we celebrate something quite similar. [Flor McCarthy in ‘New Sunday and Holy Day Liturgies’ (quoted in Net for Life)]
So just what is it that we are celebrating liturgically today? Well, in fact, we are still celebrating Easter, the Resurrection of the Lord. Easter, the Church’s paramount feast day, is at the top of the liturgical mountain. Our celebration of it goes on, not just for an octave, not just for forty days, but for fifty days! Next Sunday, on Pentecost (which means 50 days), we will experience the true culmination of Christ’s overcoming human sin and death. On Pentecost, we will again lift up our heads and experience the empowering, not just of Christ’s human followers, but of all creation—with new life, new possibilities, new expectations. “If I do not go,” says Jesus, “I cannot send you the Spirit. But if I go, I will send the Spirit to you, and you shall do even greater works than I have done among you.”
Why couldn’t Jesus just have stayed among us, spiritually and physically, and empowered us that way? Well, we really don’t know. But presumably, having among us a human leader who is over 2000 years old might pose a few problems. The Spirit transcends human limitations, even the very big limitations that we personally bring to being followers of Christ. The Spirit empowers us, both as individuals and as a community of faith. The Spirit causes to happen things that we can only dream of. The Spirit inspires dreams within us and moves us to the front lines to help those dreams come true.
Easter is the culminating event of Jesus’ life; baptism is, in a very real sense, the culminating event of our Christian lives. It is the mountain top, so to speak. From there we can go anywhere. It is the moment when we are incorporated into the resurrected body of Jesus Christ. It is the moment when we are empowered for Gospel ministry by the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of God. Our imagination often visualizes this power coming down on us from some place up above or beyond us in some way. No wonder we keep looking up!
But in fact, it does not come from “up there somewhere.” It comes from “in here somewhere,” from some source within us that has, from the moment of our baptism, been empowered by the helper, the advocate, the Spirit. Ascension Day seems to point us upward to something that is beyond us. The Spirit, however, points us inward—to what is within each of us and all of us together. So why are we standing here today looking up? The transformation is within us! The mission is ever around us, just where we are. Let’s get on with it!
