Ascension 2023: Two Worlds, One Body
Matthew, Mark and John give no report of Jesus’s departure. Yet,
Luke offers two different accounts: at the end of the gospel and at the
beginning of the Acts of the Apostles. Luke envisions this moment of departure
as the hinge, or the connecting point, between two worlds: the Empire world of
the time of Jesus Christ the Son of God on earth, and the new world of the Body
of Christ on earth – the Church, the embodiment of God’s Divine Charity and
Love. What these two accounts mean to ask us: Which world do we live in? Which do
we want to live in?
At the darkest time of all for his friends and followers,
when all seemed lost on the cross, such that they were all hiding, fearful that
they would be next, that the new world of God’s Divine Charity Jesus had opened
to them was now lost, crushed by the Empire before it could really begin,
suddenly, he returns. The Risen Jesus seeks them out, to re-ignite the light of
hope, faith and charity that had been lit. Luke and only Luke offers the detail
that he not only returned from what had seemed like certain and final death,
but that he remained with them for forty days. The same length of time Jesus
had been driven into the wilderness to learn just what it means to be God’s
Beloved. What it means to be led by the Spirit of God’s Divine Love and
Charity.
During these forty days, writes Luke, he teaches them. He
reminds them that he has equipped them to move forward. It is essential to
remember that when Luke writes these two accounts, the city of Jerusalem and
its Temple lie in ruins, which only adds to the overwhelming and pervading
darkness and dread they feel. Jesus seeks out his friends to remind them that
God’s holiness was never housed in a Temple. Never lived in an idol. God’s
holiness is most at home in the streets, in the slums, in the hospital wards,
among the farmworkers, the rural poor, the country lanes, and in the immigrant camps to which those who had
survived the Empire’s scorched-earth destruction fled to find a new way of
being God’s people.
Jesus no doubt reminds them that the mysteries through which
God’s holiness is distributed are in the simplest of every-day elements of
life: a little water, a cup of wine, a morsel of bread are enough to close the
gap between the two worlds, while giving soul and senses direct contact with God’s
Eternal Charity – with the Love of God! By means of these elements, these
creatures, of water, bread and wine, they and we become his hands that still
feed thousands, and his touch that heals body, mind and spirit.
Despite his time teaching them, as he begins his ascent, his
friends want to know: when will you return to vanquish the Empire, to bring
justice upon earth? Only the Father knows, he says. “But you will receive
power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in
Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." When
he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him
out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven,
suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, "Men of Galilee,
why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up
from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into
heaven." [i]
While they stand looking up into heaven, intent on waiting
for him to come back and do all the heavy lifting, two men in white robes say,
in effect, “What are you doing standing around? What are you waiting for? You are to get busy as his
witnesses to the ends of the earth! You are to get busy binding up the wounds
of those who are weary, feed the hungry, find shelter for the homeless, support
the rural poor, farmworkers, and help those, like you, who are fleeing
oppression. Witnessing means doing. Just as faith means doing. Get back into
the streets! There is no time for standing around looking up into the heavens,
expecting him to do the work he has prepared you to do. He is sending you his
spirit of Divine Love and Charity. Let’s go! There’s no time for standing
around!
As The Reverend D. Rebecca Dinovo reminds us in her Sermon
That Works, “…[ Eastern Orthodox theology tell us] the Ascension is the very
culmination of the mystery of the Incarnation. In other words, it is precisely
because Jesus’ body is no longer confined to earth that his body can be
mystically located in us, as the Church, the “Body of Christ.” The Ascension
teaches us that the Incarnation continues in each one of us, as members of
Christ’s Body who have been filled with the Holy Spirit. While on earth, Jesus
could only be at one place at one time; now, Jesus is present everywhere both
in heaven, interceding for us, and in all of his followers, throughout the
entire world.” [ii]
Faith, it turns out, is a verb. Faith is what we do. Not
what we say. Not what we believe. Faith is what we do once we receive the Holy
Spirit in Baptism, and become his body on earth each time we take the bread and
the cup. Each time we receive his Body and his Blood. He has conferred upon us
tremendous privilege of the gift of partnership with him; fellow workers with God.
Ascension calls us to be those people who step beyond the
old world of Empire and into the new world of God’s Divine Charity and Love for
all. Which leads us into a mysterious paradox that says that in his Ascension he
does not leave us alone. Through the gift of the Spirit, he is with us still,
now and forever. Jesus is with God and he is with us all at one and the same
time. It is because he returns to Love that we are the Body of Christ. Through
us he is everywhere all the time. For us, this is what it means to be a living
person: living because of our share in the Spirit; a person because of the
substance of our flesh. The Spirit is creative Love – which we are to receive
and to transmit to others. All others. To the ends of the Earth!
As we see the Son rising, we are to remember all of this. We
are to remember who we are and whose we are. We are to remember that faith is a
verb, the sum of our actions of creative love. We are to remember that we are
to take our faithing to the streets, to the cities, to the poor, to the sick,
to the lonely, to the abandoned, to the unloved – In His Name! Amen.
