LITURGY AND LIFE
By
Lucie Leduc
Ascension Sunday
May 16, 2010
Acts
1:1-11
Psalm 47
Ephesians 1:17-23 or
Luke 24: 46-53
Today we celebrate the awesome
event of the apostles witnessing Jesus being lifted up into heaven.
The readings from Luke invite us into Christ’s glory, to receive
the blessing he gives to the apostles and with the ears of faith to
hear and be present to his conclusive instructions.
The beginning of the first
reading from the book of Acts presents the author’s summary of
everything he wrote in his first book about Jesus (ie. The Gospel of
Luke), picking up where he left off with the many appearances of Jesus
to the disciples over 40 days, the number echoing once again the connection
of Jesus with the expectations of Israel throughout the Hebrew Scriptures.
Jesus fulfils the promise of the long-awaited Messiah for Israel and
for the whole world.
The power and glory of Jesus’
authority is newly manifested as he orders the apostles not to leave
Jerusalem, “but to wait there for the promise of the Father .
. . you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
With these words, and the words of the second reading from Ephesians,
we, today, experience our union with Jesus and the transition from knowing
him in his humanity to knowing him completely as Jesus Christ “far
above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every
name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.”
We hear the fullness of his humanity and divinity in these ascension
accounts.
We also remember our beginnings
as church “which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all
in all,” and the promise of the Spirit in our lives as having
received the “riches of his glorious inheritance” among
us. This day gives us grounds to celebrate fully our share in Christ’s
glory. As St. Irenaeus would express it later, “The glory of God
is humanity fully alive!”
Nevertheless, all kinds of questions might arise for us as it did for the apostles. “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” We might like to see Christ’s power displayed to crush oppression in the world, to end wars happening in our time, to end suffering here and now in the context we experience as most devastating. For example, today we might ask, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore your church from the scandal of sexual abuse?” Jesus’ response is instructive. As Diane Bergant says in the Year C volume of her trilogy Preaching the New Lectionary, “They are to concern themselves with being Jesus’ witnesses to the ends of the earth and not with the limited restoration of one nation.
Furthermore, it is not for
them to know God’s timing. They will have the power of the Spirit
to guide them for whatever length of time God desires.”
In Luke’s Gospel account of the ascension, the further instruction
of Jesus is to proclaim repentance, change of heart and forgiveness
of sins to all nations, from having witnessed him throughout his life
doing the same.
Along with the apostles, “we are witnesses to these things.” We share in the profound privilege of blessing others with the hope that comes from faith in Christ’s victory over sin and death, and the forgiveness born of self-emptying love that is forever being poured out on the whole of creation.
We can trust and celebrate
today with great joy that in God’s time a new creation will emerge.
All will be well and fully alive in Christ!
Leduc is the program co-ordinator at Queen’s House Retreat and Renewal Centre in Saskatoon.
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