NewCreation

Homily for Ascension Sunday, Year B

Welcome, my sisters and brothers, to this, the homily for the Solemnity of the Ascension. With apologies to those who celebrated it on Thursday, but this year I'm celebrating it on Sunday. We have in today's readings two versions of the Ascension. We have the famous version from Luke as our first reading, and this year, it being Year B, we have Mark's brief mention of it at the very end of the Gospel. Actually, that's not Mark's only mention of it. I think Mark has a subtler mention of it earlier. But this is the version which we have in the added, if you like, extra conclusion to Mark's Gospel. Mark's Gospel ends with the words: "When the women went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid." That's the original ending of Mark's Gospel. Later, what we now know as verses 9 to 20 were added on, probably in the second century, to give a more filled-out finale, mostly with elements borrowed from St. Luke's, with a little bit of St. John, so as to give a fuller ending to what seemed, no doubt, by that time to many readers a very mysterious ending. But in fact, in Mark's resurrection account, there is a little hint of the Ascension. Here Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome come to the tomb. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. That's what it says: sitting on the right side. So here is the new Holy of Holies, with an angel sitting on the right side. This symbolizes that the one who is not here is in fact now sitting on the right-hand side of God. That's the message of the Ascension. The Son of Man who has performed the sacrifice is now enthroned at God's right hand. That fulfills the prophecy in Daniel, which explains exactly how this was going to happen. That's Daniel 7, which explains exactly how this was going to happen. So I think that an earlier generation would have picked up that this was a reference to everything having been fulfilled. But because we've got rather more used to, if you like, the helicopter imagery, we're less aware of what is meant by the Ascension. We think of it much more in terms of physical liftoff than how it would have been considered by the earliest readers of Mark, by the earliest Christian thinkers. Because it seems, both in Mark and in Luke's account, that they are thinking of ascension, of ascent, of lifting up, much more in terms of the throne visions of the holy place in the Temple, starting with Isaiah's, which is very clearly referenced in Luke's account. So here in Luke's account, we have: after Jesus has interacted with the disciples after his resurrection, he's told them that they will receive power when the Holy Spirit will come upon them, and he's going to send them to the rest of the world. And as he said this, he was lifted up while they looked on, and a cloud took him from their sight. The same verb, "lifted up," is used to describe the vision of Isaiah in the year that King Uzziah died. This is Isaiah 6: "I saw the Lord high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple, and the house was filled with smoke" — smoke meaning clouds of incense. So here we have the lifting up and the clouds. Fairly soon, the house where the disciples meet are filled, as part of the Lord's train now comes down amongst them. In fact, in the beginning of Acts we have the, if you like, living out on earth of Isaiah's throne vision. We get the throne vision in Daniel as well. And all of this is important to understand what's going on in the Ascension, rather than it being a matter of how Jesus physically departed — i.e. vertically — which is actually stressed by the angels was not really how he departed. It's a question of what was meant by the rite of the Ascension. In the background to this, there is the understanding, the ancient Jewish understanding from the time of the first Temple, that the key liturgy — atonement and enthronement — the great high priest giving himself and then the royal figure being enthroned and God's power being over all: these two central feasts, they had already happened in heaven. They were part of the Creator's plan. They'd already happened in heaven. They already existed, if you like, as real facts, and in this secondary reality — they hadn't yet; the second, which we call the world, earth, creation — they hadn't yet been actually fully enacted. They could only be enacted liturgically by signs in the Temple. But the prophets awaited the time when they would actually be lived out, and Jesus says life, death, resurrection, and ascension is the living out on earth of that which is done in heaven. That's the whole purpose of it; that's what's meant by the Incarnation: the making available in flesh, living out on earth, that which is already done in heaven. And the Ascension is the conclusion of that. It's, if you like, the earthly glimpse of the end of the whole thing. It's only an earthly glimpse, because we have no possible language to describe the end of the heavenly liturgy. We see different moments: we see Jesus teaching, we see him going to his death, we see him living into death so as to detoxify it, we see his resurrection, in which the beginning of everything opens up and we suddenly see the whole wonder of creation being made alive for us and us being invited to take part in it. And then, very very quickly, the Ascension — the enthronement in the heaven. We use simply mystical language for that, because how do we talk about the conclusion to the whole thing? How do we talk about the whole thing having been finally enacted? So the full power that God had intended to unleash on earth has now been unleashed, and we can now await the whole of that presence to make itself available to us in the form of the Holy Spirit, because that's the key distinction that's going on here. Jesus finished something, he achieved something, it's done, it's over. And now that he's achieved it, something massive is going to be made available to us, something huge is going to be unleashed in our midst. It's the hugeness that has already been achieved in heaven and is now going to be made available to us in the form of power, gifts and so forth, things which Paul talks about in the second reading. So that very much more than the vertical liftoff is what's going on here. And just to remind us about that, even at the time in Luke's Gospel — he's aware, or rather, Luke is aware of the risk of vertical thinking. So he says they were still staring into the sky when suddenly two men in white were standing near them. So here we have the two seraphs from the holy place. The holy place has now gone out into the world. Two seraphs standing near them, so they're standing beside them, not up in heaven. They're standing beside them on earth, saying: "Why are you men from Galilee standing here looking into the sky?" It's distinct from heaven. Heaven is in principle anywhere and everywhere. The sky is physically upwards. "Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven" — not the same as the sky — "this same Jesus will come back in the same way as you have seen him go." How did they see him go? They saw him go between two different sorts of seraphs — thieves — one of whom was penitent, on either side of him, as he gave himself for them, promising that that day the penitent thief would be in paradise. So the opening up of creation, the opening up of the garden, would be happening that day. That's how you saw him go. That's how you will see him come back: in the opening up of the new creation, by the one handing himself over. So the feast of the Ascension is celebrating completion, the fullness of all that. Everything that God had intended for us on earth has finally been achieved for us. We are now going to be enabled to receive this power and take it up ourselves and become its full participants and its actors out. I feel like Jesus being enthroned in heaven means finally — I feel like that human nature which was always meant in Adam to have been given a heavenly status has finally been given that heavenly status. It's finally been resolved, the problem of Adam having fallen into futility. Now Adam has been taken to the heavenly place, and with him — that's with Jesus — all of us potentially, starting now, beginning to be able to live out the heavenly vision. Hence the importance of us being asked to keep our minds fixed on the things that are above, allowing our minds to be transfixed by that which is coming upon us, by that which is opening out and coming upon us, rather than that which is worrying us and tempting us to fear and depression and panic. Rather, allowing ourselves to be filled with the thought of how much is being given to us, and that the giver is constantly looking for new things to give us in order to fulfill that which has already been achieved. So this is, if you like, something victorious about the Ascension — victorious not only for what Jesus was intending, what God had intended, not only for creation but for us. This is the beginning of our victory, if you like, and that's why this is a great, great feast. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.