“The meaning of Christ’s Ascension,” writes Pope Benedict XVI, “expresses our belief that in Christ the humanity that we all share has entered into the inner life of God in a new and hitherto unheard of way. It means that we have found an everlasting place in God.” It would be a mistake to interpret the Ascension as “the temporary absence of Christ from the world.” Rather, “we go to heaven to the extent that we go to Jesus Christ and enter into him.” Heaven is a person: “Jesus himself is what we call heaven.”
On this great feast of Ascension, the centre of course is the resurrected Jesus but this feast is all about us the members of His body: The Church. The ascension celebrates the fact that Jesus sometime (40 days) after his resurrection enters a new and higher dimension of existence. Jesus is physically leaving his disciples. The one whom they loved so much will no longer be seen, heard, or touched. This departure marks a New Relationship of Jesus with us: I leave for heaven so that your own hands may now become my hands, your deeds my deeds, your heart my heart, your voice my voice. Jesus is leaving them visibly but he is not abandoning them rather asking his disciples to be what they have seen him to be – that they must now themselves become what they have learned to admire and love in Jesus.
Just like the flame of the Easter candle. Soon we will move the Easter Candle from the main altar marking the end of the Easter season after the feast of the Pentecost. The visible presence of the Easter candle will no longer be with us but the warmth of the flame of the risen Lord will continue to burn in our hearts all year through.
Christian hope is not centred on a disembodied soul that’s escaped from the body. Christian hope has to do with the resurrection of the body. The transfiguration of the whole self by God’s grace. The ascension of Jesus gives all of us the resurrection hope that we would one day rise with him and that Christ will give us bodies like his own glorified body.
This feast is also about us, as believers, the living members of His body: The Church. One of the great tasks of the Messiah was to gather the 12 tribes of Israel. Jesus accomplished his mission which was given to him by His Father. Jesus promises his disciples the Holy Spirit and that the Holy Spirit would accomplish through us God’s work and this is where our role in God’s mission as co-partners with God comes in. That Jesus would give us the Holy Spirit to carry on his work.
The disciples return to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple praising God. Though Jesus was not physically present with them the disciples returned back to Jerusalem filled with joy in their hearts. Joy is the gift of the Holy Spirit. This is the promise of the same joy each of us will receive when we encounter the risen Lord in the community. We are called to be joyful people and continue to discover the risen presence of Jesus in the community of disciples.