READINGS

1. Luke 24:46-53
2. Acts 1:1-11

HOMILY

This year, following the reading of Luke's Gospel, we get both the Acts one picture of Ascension by Luke and then the Ascension in the Gospel, also by Luke, the very end of Luke's Gospel.

There are some interesting ways of tying them together which are not obvious.

I hope you'll see that that's rather fun.

But, before I do that, I want to bring out something which is important we understand from the get-go, which is that our word Ascension in our minds is far too frequently associated with geographical liftoff, the notion of vertical departure from Jesus.

And it fits into if you like a picture which I think seriously mistaken of the resurrection being a happy ending to the nasty story of Jesus having gone to his death to pay for our sins.

So there's the happy ending in the resurrection, then Jesus hangs around for a bit giving instructions, and then off he goes.

I want to say that I think this is completely misleading because, as I hope, I brought out during our early Easter sessions, the resurrection is a beginning, not a happy ending.

It's a rather disturbing beginning, it's the opening up of everything new in such a way that none of the old certainties and structures bound by death hold.

It's a big shock in the system.

Then that Jesus appears over some time but one of the things understood pretty quickly is that his going wasn't, simply as it were, a farewell departure: it was his being enthroned and that was the way in which the ancient rite of atonement was followed by the ceremony of enthronement.

This rite meant that God, in the form of the High Priest (form of the lamb), had given himself for the cleansing of the earth, for the weaving together of creation and for the blessing of God's people.

After that, the next ceremony was the enthronement: they're being raised up to sit on the throne at the right hand of God from which point God would begin to reign over all.

We have this arms to do with God reigning over all. That's what's going on in the Ascension.

The Ascension is not the happy farewell party, but the fact that it's all over, that it's happened.

The heavenly rite which had been fulfilled in heaven long before the foundation of the world has now happened on earth.

Jesus has taken human flesh, he's been baptized, he's taught, he's gone up to his death, he's occupied the space of death fulfilling the rite of Atonement.

This was the sign of the resurrection life being made available, which now starts to become available, and now he is enthroned and sitting on the right hand of God.

Once this has been fulfilled, then all the power of that can be unleashed upon us.

And it's that that we're going to be seeing from the from Pentecost onwards is the unleashing of the great power of that which had been definitively achieved for all time: humanity is taken into heaven, human nature becomes part of the heavenly show, the heavenly narrative actually having become a human narrative, which means the human narrative having become a heavenly narrative.

And that's for good, that's not interruptable, nothing can happen any longer to make that change.

The whole of creation is on a slightly different axis from what it was before.

That's the meaning of the Ascension.

It's the great ending of everything.

And it's from then that the whole of the life that opened up can now flow upon us.

Now, with that as a background, let's see how that's explained by Luke, because in Luke we get what I would call a staggered Ascension.

We get an Ascension immediately a sort of a mini Ascension as I showed you on the First Sunday of Easter, as in John's Gospel the resurrection and Ascension are only with great difficulty distinguished.

And then we get one 40 days later.

Remember that, on the first evening after the resurrection in Luke's Gospel, the disciples have gone to Emmaus, they've come back after they saw Jesus in the breaking of the bread, they've had their witness confirmed by the apostolic group, and then suddenly Jesus is in the midst of them saying: peace be with you.

And they were startled and terrified and thought they were seeing a ghost.

He says: why are you frightened, why do doubts rise in your heart?

Look at my hands and my feet and see, that it is I, myself, touch me and see, for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.

In other words, we get elements which in John are staggered, here in Luke brought out in a single evening.

When he said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.

While in their joy, they were just believing and still wondering, he said to them: have you anything here to eat?

And they gave him a piece of broiled fish.

Well remember that we had broiled fish not so long ago in John's account as well.

So Luke is treating those things all with the density here so that he can make the point of the Ascension in a slightly different way from John.

John makes a distinction between his appearance to Mary Magdalene and not touching him, and what happens when he comes into the midst of the whole group when it's clearly the one who is in fullness who is sending us.

It's at that point that this Sunday's Gospel begins.

We're still in what John called "the locked room for fear of the Jews", but which for here is just a space.

And yes, Jesus says to them: "these are the words that I spoke to while I was still with you", suggesting that this is a different mode of presence from the one that he enjoyed before his death.

He's talking about being still with them as something in the past.

This is definitely a post-resurrection appearance.

"That everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled."

He just explains to the disciples on the road to Emmaus about Moses and the prophets, here he adds to the psalms, and maybe that's important since so many of the psalms refer to the enthronement.

Psalms singing the praise of the king being enthroned, the throne part of the ritual.

Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and he said to them: that is written that the anointed one, the messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day; and remember that on the third day meant some short time thereafter.

And that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem.

What has he been doing? He's been occupying the space of the kind of awful thing we do to people putting them to death, and that his occupying that space fully: the shame, the death, sucking it all up as it were - that is what enables us to be able to say without fear of revenge "oh my God, that's what I've been caught up in; but, because I know, he did that for me, I know that we are loved even so, I know I'm loved even so".

So repentance becomes possible and with that forgiveness of sins actually, forgiveness of sins is what makes repentance possible.

With that repentance and forgiveness of sins is able to be preached in his name to all nations.

In other words, he is the living atonement package which is now going to be preached to all nations starting from Jerusalem.

And there will only be little hints in Luke that it was going to be all nations rather than a Jerusalem-related thing, rather than a specifically intra-Israel thing. But here it makes it quite clear: this is going to be for all nations.

"You are witnesses of these things."

In other words, what have they witnessed?

They've witnessed him suffering and rising from the dead on the third day, they've witnessed his teaching of the words, they've witnessed the integrity of what the interpretation becomes possible of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms.

And then he says: and see, I'm sending upon you what my Father has promised, so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.

So there's a power coming upon them, this will be the power when God reigns over all, but they don't yet get that.

Then he led them out as far as Bethany.

Curiously not in here, the Mount of Olives, he's gone to Bethany, back to a more domestic place.

And lifting up his hands - this is a key word, the lifting up: he gives them a High-Priestly blessing.

This is the priestly blessing - lifting up his hands.

But here notice he's the priest, he's not yet the holy place enthroned in the temple.

That we're going to get in the beginning of Acts.

For the moment here, it is the Great High Priest. So he blessed them.

"While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them".

That suggests a movement backwards, - "and was carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem".

They worshiped him and prostrated themselves before him.

So here they are going down to the ground, and he's gone up, their head to the ground, and then they return to Jerusalem with great joy and they were continually in the temple blessing God.

They knew they had a Great High Priest.

But as yet Jerusalem and its temple were still the center of their lives in terms of their understanding of where God.

They understood that the Great High Priest had done these things, that therefore the atonement could now begin to be preached, but apart from that they didn't really understand much more.

They did understand that all this had been for joy.

Well, the Acts of the Apostles, which are first reading, then comes and it says: after his suffering, he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs appearing to them over the course of forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait there for the promise of the Father.

This is what you have heard from me, for John baptized with water but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.

So there's a period of time in which the teaching goes on above all when they're united, when they're up together.

And so here we have another occasion when they had come together.

Their coming together here, the beginnings of a gathering together that will be the Church.

And they ask him: Lord is this the time when he will restore the Kingdom of Israel.

So they were expecting the enthronement and the kingdom to come but they had a misleading understanding of the enthronement and the kingdom.

And he replied: it's not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.

That's the important thing: you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.

That's the power of once the Lord is reigning over all.

It's the Lord's power that will begin to cover the earth as following the psalms.

And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

So first thing before they had been witness to something, things that had happened, now they will be his witnesses, now they will be bearing witness to him, they will, in fact, be being him, being impelled across the world.

And whereas they had asked about the kingdom of Israel, he said: my witness is in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and in the ends of the earth.

The ends of the earth was slang at that time for Rome. It was one of the titles which Rome had for itself.

The end of the verse is quite simply the ancient Greek of that time referring to Rome.

When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight.

Remember, before he lifted up his hands in the blessing, but here he is lifted up.

And this is the fulfillment at last of the great Isaiah throne vision, the beginning of Isaiah 6: I saw the Lord high and lifted up on his throne, his train filled the temple. The house was filled with smoke and the posts of the door shook.

We're going to get elements of that being fulfilled over the next days with houses shaking, a house being filled with smoke, but initially it was the vision of the Lord lifted up and enthroned with the seraphs crying: glory, glory, glory. (Absolutely central vision in the Hebrew scriptures.)

Here that is literally being fulfilled.

Before he was just being the priest; now he was the holy one lifted up.

Before - his hands, now it's the whole of him.

"And when he'd said this as they were watching he was lifted up, while he was going and they were gazing up towards heaven suddenly two men in white robes stood by them".

So the two men in white robes - obviously angelic figures standing in for the seraphim in the holy place, the ones who cried "holy holy holy".

They are at the same level as they are, not up there.

Remember that in version 1 he blessed them and they had bound down and worshiped.

Here his hand lifted up and they're gazing upward.

This is Luke's way of saying: neither one nor the other.

"So the angel said to him: men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards heaven?"

So they bowed down when it was a priest blessing them, they're gazing up when it was the holy place vision.

"This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven".

And that means - in the crucifixion.

At the same level as they - that is where you will see him come.

He will come in clouds of glory bearing the clouds; the cloud which came here is the sign of the holy place being filled with incense.

But he will come as the priest who is giving himself up to death in your midst at your level, that's the one who said to the thief beside him: this day will be with me in paradise - that is how you will see him, that's the way he's going to be made present to you.

So then they return to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, and we get Pentecost.

But what I wanted to bring out here is how beautifully Luke gives this staggered account of the difference between the priestly blessing and the priestly blessing enthroned, the enthroned vision, so that we are now caught up in that.

That's never going to go away, and now the power of the one who reigns over all creation is going to come upon us and take us into it, so that we may worship with love and with joy on the inside of that, unstoppably and forever.

SUMMARY

His going wasn't simply a farewell departure, but being enthroned.

That was the way in which the ancient rite of atonement was followed by the right of enthronement.

This means that, after God in the form of the High Priest in the form of the lamb had given himself for the cleansing of the earth, was the enthronement (God reigning over all).

Once this has been fulfilled, then all the power of that can be unleashed upon us.

Humanity taken into heaven. Human narrative becomes heaven narrative.

From then the whole of the life that opened up can now flow upon us.

John: Staggared Ascension.

Luke: Brought out in the single evening.

He's been occupying the space of the kind of awful thing we do to people putting them to death, and that his occupying that space fully: the shame, the death, sucking it all up as it were.

This enables us to say: Oh my God, that's what I've been caught up in; but because I know he did that for me, I know that we are loved even so. Repentance and forgiveness of sins becomes possible.

Now the power of the one who reigns over all creation is going to come upon us and take us into it, so that we may worship with love and with joy on the inside of that, unstoppably and forever.