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When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted.
Even after Easter, after we have become witnesses of the resurrection, we can still find ourselves among the disciples who worship, yes, but who also fall back into doubt.
So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?"
Our unspoken expectation was that Easter ought to have been the great climax and therefore the conclusion of salvation history. But the days and weeks that followed proved that the resurrection was not yet the coming of the Kingdom in fullness. With the disciples, we wonder what we are still doing here. What remains to be done now that the resurrection victory is won? It might seem like the triumphant Jesus would immediately bring the world of time and change to an end, permanently casting out death and sin.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
We worry and we doubt that we are simply moving backward to a time before he was present to us. Was Easter just a brief, joyful moment in time that ultimately left things the same, untransformed? No! Rather, at his ascension Jesus inaugurated the era of the Church. Instead of simply bringing things to a conclusion himself apart from us he chooses, in mercy, and in kindness, to use his Mystical Body, that is, to use us, to bring all into one in him.
The Ascension is in no way a move backward into a more natural life after a brief and miraculous interval. This is true because, while Jesus ascends, he does not thereby withdraw. He goes, yet he does not leave us.
and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.
Because Jesus is with us nothing is the same. Even though, without the eyes of faith, the world doesn't look all that different, with the eyes of our hearts enlightened we know the hope of our call, the riches of the inheritance which is ours, and the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe.
ording to the working of his great might which he accomplished in Christ when he raised him from the dead and made him sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come;
We are not simply inspired by the Risen one. We are not simply directed by words and memories passed down about him. Rather, we are connected to him in a new and immeasurably greater way. Because he has taken our humanity with him through the veil into the presence of the Father our own humanity as we live here below is transformed, made new, and filled with power.
and he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
The Ascension is the enthronement of Jesus, there to reign, not just over heaven, but over earth, precisely through his body, through those who remain. Because this is true Jesus insists that we can't live the life we are meant to live in this era through the powers we have by nature.
But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Sama'ria and to the end of the earth.
It is fitting that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit depends first on the Ascension. Our humanity is exalted to a royal dignity in the Ascension. Therefore, the Spirit which Jesus has in virtue of his divinity is something in which redeemed humanity can now share. It is through the Spirit that we are equipped to carry out the mission of the Church.
What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended into the lower [regions] of the earth? The one who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. And he gave some as apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers, to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ (see Ephesians 4:9-12)
It is through the Spirit that we reign even in this life.
much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ (see Romans 5:17).
Given the importance of the Spirit, should we simply pass quickly over the Ascension in our hurry to Pentecost? No! In God's design the way to Pentecost passes first through the Ascension. If we want to celebrate Pentecost well we need to allow the Ascension to set our direction, and anchor our hope. In order to pray "Come Holy Spirit" well we must first ask, with Paul, for the grace of "having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you". When this reality takes hold of us we will understand the joy of the psalmist, who wrote "God has gone up with a shout, the LORD with the sound of a trumpet."
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