Welcome to Ascension Sunday!, d’ye remember the days when you could say welcome to Ascension Thursday! – and who says the Irish Hierarchy don’t take decisions that affect a real change!! The decision taken by the Irish Bishops a number of years ago to ‘topple’ the two Thursdays (Corpus Christi as well) to land on the following Sunday wasn’t what many would have seen as necessarily ranking near the top of “real needs” in the Ireland of its day – but that’s how it is!
However, that said, back to the central message of this Feast (Ascension Day). The central truth that comes into focus at this time of the year (c. 40 days after Easter) is that Jesus the Nazarene, Jesus the Christ, has put Himself beyond the limits of just human sight and time, beyond the grasp of the physical human stretch – but not beyond the experience of the human heart, nor the Human Being who seeks Him. The heart that knows the love of others, the head that knows the joy of peace, and the mind that knows the balm of calm, can also more easily recognize these experiences as ‘the presence of God’, in a way that is terrifically real as well.
I remember hearing one time that “seeking the ‘presence’ of God as opposed to seeking the ‘knowledge’ of God” is the hallmark of the correct approach to the feast of the Ascension.
If people simply ask questions like “how did he manage to do that -, how did he actually disappear” as if the physical detail of this truth was what matters, they’re wrong! – ‘cause it’s not. The truth is not in the ‘stunt’ done without the help of smoke or mirrors – head first? or feet first? – it’s the promise of presence beyond the limits of human sight! And, come to think of it, which one of us can’t recognize the truth of that experience in the experience of love as well!! Small wonder the claim that “God is Love” is the proud boast of all Christians.
The truth of the Ascension (however obscure the facts remain) is that the Jesus of History is now the Christ of all time – accessible to and in communion with all who believe in Him. As we stand in the 21st century, exactly the same truth is on offer to me or you as was on offer to any man or woman since the dawn of that first century event, that we mark today.
In Jesus the son of God, the child of Mary, time stands still, time is! Just because we who only know ‘time’ as moment after moment, can get just the slightest glimpse of the ‘Eternal’; but a hint that’s strong enough none-the-less to sustain us in our search. After all that, or hopefully because of it, have a good Ascension Day.
AO’N
P.S. The following quote attributed to A. Lincoln seems a nice way to round off ‘looking upward or far-off;
‘I can see how it is possible for a person to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how one could look into the heavens and say there is no God’.
Abraham Lincoln