Glorified in Him

Christ is Ascended!

The Gospel from the final words of the Gospel of St Luke, as well as the Epistle from the opening words of the Book of Acts—also written by St Luke—both tell the true story of the Ascension of Jesus Christ into heaven. Understandably, St Luke thought this was so important that he closed his own Gospel and opened the Book of Acts with reflections on the Ascension. What are Christ and St Luke trying to teach us in these statements about the Ascension?

In the Gospel of St Luke, the Ascension takes place on the road to Jerusalem, near Bethany, a small village three and a half miles outside Jerusalem—the home of Martha and Mary and Lazarus. It was here that Lazarus was raised from the dead. The last words of Jesus Christ to the apostles before He ascended to heaven offer an important message to the apostles and to us with three key points. First, Jesus Christ said; and I quote: “‘All things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning me.’ And He opened their understanding that they might comprehend the Scriptures,” said Jesus Christ.

St Bede reflects; and I quote: “When [Jesus Christ] was about to ascend into heaven, our Lord took care to instruct his disciples diligently concerning the mystery of faith in him. [Then] they might therefore preach it with greater certainty to the world, because they had received it from the mouth of Truth itself and recognized that the words of the prophet [David] had long ago foreshadowed it…. We are saved through faith in his incarnation, passion and resurrection that have been accomplished,” concludes St Bede. So, notice that Jesus Christ is urging the apostles to ground their faith in Him through understanding how the Old Testament—the Bible of the Jews and of the early Christians—prepares His followers to know Him. Furthermore, St Bede sees the incarnation, passion and resurrection as being completed and “accomplished” in the Ascension. The life and death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ are a unity that can best be understood as a whole, beginning with a close reading and prayer with the Old Testament.  Events on earth have moved from the arrival of Jesus Christ from heaven to earth in the Incarnation to the return of Jesus Christ to heaven in the Ascension.

Second, the words of Jesus Christ continue in today’s Gospel; and I quote: “Then he said to them, ‘Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things,’” Jesus Christ told the apostles. So, based on the Old Testament, Jesus Christ is telling the apostles why it “was necessary” for him “to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day.” Furthermore, Jesus Christ is setting out the message that the apostles should bring to all nations—the importance of “repentance and forgiveness of sins.”

St Augustine preached of this Gospel passage; and I quote: “What did [ Christ] tell [the apostles] from the Scriptures? He said: ‘Repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem.’ The disciples could not [yet] see this. They could see Christ talking about the church that would be…. They could see the head [Christ Himself], but [they] could not yet see the body [of the church]…. [Jesus Christ] showed himself to the disciples and promised them the church. He showed us the church and ordered us to believe about himself. The apostles saw one thing, but they did not see the other. We also see one thing and do not see the other. [The apostles] having the head [Christ] there with them, [learned to] believe about the body. [Now,] having the body here with us, we should believe about the head,” concluded St Augustine.  So it is that the apostles and each of us come to believe in two truths—that Christ is the head of the Church, and in the body of the Church, which includes each of us.

Third, Jesus Christ urges the apostles to be patient, when just before He ascends He says; and I quote; “Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but stay in the city of Jerusalem until you are clothed with power from on high,” concluded Jesus Christ. St Bede notes; and I quote: “Although [the apostles] already possessed the Holy Spirit, they received [Him] more fully once Christ ascended into heaven…. [The apostles] were inflamed with such great assurance of strength that any threats from the rulers could not prevent them from speaking to everyone in the name of Jesus,” concluded St Bede.

That is certainly shown in today’s epistle when Christ appears to the Apostles on the day of Pentecost. “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit” and spoke to the people, with each person hearing them speak in their own language; and 3,000 people were baptised. Notice that when Jesus Christ was speaking to the apostles earlier, as set out in the opening verses of the Book of Acts, Christ, was; and I quote: “speaking of the kingdom of God… So when [the apostles] had come together, they asked him, ‘Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’ [Christ] said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you,’” concluded Christ.

It is striking that the apostles were still thinking that Christ was going to establish “the kingdom of God” on earth—in other words, that the Jews and their supporters were going to defeat the Romans. In a review of a new translation of the Belgian historian Johan Huizinga’s study of the Middle Ages, David Horspool, the History Editor of TLS (The Times Literary Supplement), notes the danger of continuing to focus on the “suffocating … growth of old, compelling forms of thought over the living core of the [new] idea” [TLS, 30 April 2021, review of Johan Huiziga, Autumntide of the Middle Ages, translated by Dianne Webb, p. 10]. That is precisely what the Jewish apostles were doing in the midst of trying to understand how the life and teaching of Jesus Christ fit into their lives and their understanding of how God would now work in their lives.

David Horspool makes another important point about how the apostles and each of us are living our lives. He notes that “No one in [what we now call] ‘the Middle Ages’ thought they were in the middle of anything.” In other words, this modern idea that the Middle Ages were a period of history between the Dark Ages and the so-called Renaissance was simply a later name developed by historians, but had no impact on how people were actually living their lives at that time. For the Jews and Christians of the first century, as for the majority of people in 15th century Europe, “everyday life” and “religious contexts” were a unity, because there was no distinction between everyday life and religion.

In conclusion, the Gospel and the Epistle today are guiding us to pray and read both the Old and New Testaments with a new awareness of our free will and our ability to follow Jesus Christ and be members of His Church. We now live in cultures that are often worldly and at times promote thoughts and actions that do not care for others or for God’s creation. However, we can each make the decision to follow Joshua when he said in the Book of Joshua, chapter 24, verse 15; and I quote: “But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, because He is holy.”

Christ is risen! Father Emmanuel Kahn