READINGS

1. Solemnity of the Ascension

HOMILY

Today is one of the most important feasts in the life of the church.

Why? Because today is the day when finally the whole of the Divine Liturgy, the reality that have been going on and has been going on will be going on in Heaven long before anything happens on earth.

Finally has interacted completely with human life to such a point that human life has now been taken up into the divine liturgy.

This is the triumphant ending.

Just to remind you the ancient liturgies - the first temple with the Atonement, the Ascension and the net result of these as the visions of the Most High lifted up sitting upon the throne.

In the midst of the one high and lifted up and sitting upon the throne, there is a lamb standing as one slain.

This is all happening before the creation of the world.

Before anything was created, there was a plan in the middle of time, forgot to open up the possibility of everything created becoming a sharing in the life of Heaven.

This plan consisted of coming into the earth a reality as a human, conquering death, opening up for us the possibility of learning how to live through forgiveness and then revealing where he had already always been on the throne at the right hand of God.

This would open up the possibility thereafter of us becoming fully aligned with the new creation.

This full alignment happens through the giving of the Holy Spirit.

The whole possibility has opened us up us becoming alive and then the gift of making it possible is given in Pentecost.

So that's what we're celebrating in the feasts of Ascension.

Finally the human story has been taken into the life of God in such a way that Heaven and the human story are now forever linked and that we are all of us living with the possibility of our lives being realigned.

In Paul's language, for this is justified, realigned with the new creation.

This is the gift of the Holy Spirit, which will come upon us.

So let's look a little bit but the texts.

Looking at the text now, is the Matthean version of the same thing, where Jesus claims:

all authority in Heaven and on earth has been given to me 

In other words, I have become the central axis around which the relationship between Heaven and earth works.

The lamb slain enthroned and the weakened the most high is the axis around which the relationship between Heaven and earth works.

Everything now flows from that.

In as far as we can, let's find ourselves being called in to participate in the life that is opened up in that way.

That's what Jesus instructs me to go and baptize people in the name of the Father Son and the Holy Spirit precisely so that they can become, at last, taken out of the world of futility of creation running down in violence and futility and vanity and finally opened up to actually able to share in and give glory to God.

The disciples are to teach, to baptize.

We're to learn and discover all the things that Jesus has commanded to us.

This is our way of becoming realigned with everything that's on the inside.

So that's the way that Matthew, who doesn't talk about any of a vertical movement by Jesus at this point, his gospel ends with the declaration authority which I want to say is the same thing.

Jesus says: I am the hermeneutical key, I am the cornerstone, I am the central axis by which the whole of the relationship between Heaven and creation now gyrates.

Most of us, however, when it comes to the Feast of the Ascension, get a little bit stuck on the vertical language.

And so I just want to make some points about about that.

In our Acts reading, what's described is really very interesting.

I just want to give a little bit of context to the Acts reading.

You remember that not that long before, Jesus has been crucified between two thieves, one in his left and one in his right.

You remember that there is a dialogue between Jesus and the one who he referred to as the good thief, in which Jesus says today you will be with me in Paradise, which is the garden, the first day of creation, the opening up of everything.

He's talking us about what is going to be achieved in his death.

Then, very shortly thereafter the veil of the Temple is ripped and Jesus breathes his last.

So, for the first time, we get to see what the Most High looks like on the mercy seat in the Holy Place.

He looks like the crucified blasts from us, siliceous person between the two angels, the two Seraphim beside the mercy seat.

And the Seraphim looked like crucified leaves - at least one of whom is realized why he is there.

Move forward a couple of days and behold - the women who come to the tomb see the two angels.

They see the Jesus's promise of you will be with me in Paradise is true.Ï

The two angels strangely, even the mocking one, in the Holy Place.

Jesus - they can't see any more - and the scene 'why looking for the living amongst the dead' though as they haven't quite yet got it.

And, in this final scene, which refers essential in the beginning of Acts, it refers to Jesus being taken up.

As Jesus is taken up - guess what - these two angels appear and because it says Jesus is lifted up and they said on a cloud took him and then these two angels are the same two angels.

The mercy seat angels say:

Why are you looking upwards? 

Don't you see that he will come back from to you in the same way he was taken from? 

Meaning that the place you originally saw him going to Heaven, which was at the crucifixion.

Now one of the things that is curious about this is:

So the angels are saying:

Listen, don't look upwards. This is not a vertical matter.

The only possible use of the vertical matter is to fulfill a Psalm talking about how he would put everything under his feet.

There's literally a poetic reference.

And we actually get that in our reading from the Ephesians putting everything under his knee.

Nice reference, but it's poetic metaphor, okay?

The angels are quite insistent: not vertical, but horizontal.

Look to the coming of the Lord in the same way you saw him go.

The same way you saw him go was in his crucifixion.

That's it's.

Looking that way, you're going to be enabled to receive the Holy Spirit.

Now, even more fantastic in this readingm is the verb that's used.

When it says Jesus was 'lifted up', it's actually exactly the same verse as in Isaiah 6.

I saw the Lord rise and lifted up 

Exactly the same verb.

What the angels are describing is a Holy Place, which the disciples are undergoing the definitive Holy Place vision.

They are seeing the lamb seated at the right hand of the Father.

That's what that lifted up refers to.

You can even actually tell that's the case, because at the very end of Luke's Gospel, there's a much slighter account of the Ascension.

Where it says: 'he came talked with them'; and then it says 'and he parted from them'; and then in some ancient versions it said 'and he was lifted up from', but he uses the verb of upward mobility.

It uses the vertical verb, which suggests that whoever added that phrase - the vertical verb - was somehow unsatisfied with 'and he parted from' and instead to add this level of mobility, which means that he didn't quite get the sense of the high and lifted up.

The high and lifted up, which Luke clearly refers to in Acts is the same as in as I by talking about the throne vision of the Most High and the lamb seated at God's right hand.

I hope you can see that the vertical bit doesn't matter very much.

What really matters is how we find ourselves living that throne vision, which has now become at the basic ordinary way in which humans live with rejoicing as the gifts of that alignment of creation and the new creation starts made available to us by the Holy Spirit, which is coming at Pentecost or, in the Johanine version of the same thing, which happened on the first day of the of the resurrection.

What's the central reality is absolutely the same. Jesus has achieved something. It's done. It's over.

Something about what was in Heaven as it is in Heaven has now actually happened on earth.

And because it's happened on earth, it made it possible for Humanity to be realigned with life in Heaven, which is what we're called to.

So when we pray this Eucharist and we think of the language of the Lamb blessed are we who are called to the banquet of the Lamb.

All this is possible because of today's great and great feasts, the lifting up of the Lord.

The end of the working out on earth of the human of the celestial mystery of our salvation before the creation of the world and how this means that we're now engaged in a different exercise in being created than any of us thought at all possible before, hence the joy of the good news of the New Testament.