THE ASCENSION
ACTS 1:1-11
In my first book, dear Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. After his passion, he presented himself alive to them by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.
While eating together, he commanded them:
– Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which you heard from me. For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit in a few days.
They gathered around him and asked:
– Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?
Jesus replied:
– It is not for you to know the times or dates that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. While they were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”
Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away.
It is convenient to focus the first reading and the gospel on the set of ascension narratives and texts to better understand them. Let us review the whole.
MATTHEW
For Matthew, there are no appearances of the Risen One in Jerusalem. The “farewell of Jesus” takes place in Galilee, on a mountain. The time is not specified. The ending is:
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
MARK (In the added epilogue)
The disciples do not go to Galilee. The farewell takes place in the Cenacle, in Jerusalem, on the same Sunday of the resurrection. Jesus gives them a message of mission similar to that of Matthew. The text ends like this:
“The Lord Jesus, after speaking to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs.”
LUKE (We have read it in today’s gospel text)
The disciples do not go to Galilee. The farewell takes place on the road to Bethany, on Easter Sunday. The last paragraph is:
“Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.”
JOHN (First conclusion)
The farewell takes place in the Cenacle, eight days after Easter Sunday. The “farewell discourse” was placed eight days earlier, in the appearance without Thomas. It says:
“Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
In the appearance with Thomas there is no mission discourse. There is no mention of the “departure” of Jesus.
After the first conclusion, a group of disciples are presented fishing on the Sea of Galilee. Jesus manifests himself, eats with them, and confirms Peter’s mission.
ACTS (Today’s first reading)
The farewell takes place from the Mount of Olives, forty days after the resurrection. There is a sermon of mission and a description of Jesus’ ascent into heaven, through the air, with the promise that he will return.
Summarizing the similarities and differences:
§ The four Gospels and Acts record a Mission sermon as the conclusion of Jesus’ message.
§ Matthew and John do not speak of Jesus’ “departure,” but they preserve the Galilean tradition, while Mark, Luke, and Acts describe the departure: “The Lord Jesus, after speaking with them, was taken up into heaven and sat at the right hand of God.” “And while he was blessing them, he parted from them.” Both place the action in Jerusalem and its surroundings.
§ ACTS describes the departure as a lifting off into the clouds.
§ The earliest Mark, Luke, and John (1st conclusion) conclude on the same Sunday of the resurrection.
§ The added endings to Mark, Matthew, and John (2nd conclusion) imply an indefinite intermediate time.
§ Acts expressly speaks of forty days.
Evidently, for all these reasons, we are not dealing with the simple narration of an event, but with something more, the meaning of the event, the faith in what happens at the core of what is seen.
The same Paul, in 1Cor 15, gives us another version, and also a different one.
“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.”
In this sense, we must not forget some clear conclusions:
– It is not possible to reconstruct a “chronology of the resurrection and ascension of the Lord.” The texts do not provide it.
– It is not possible to ignore the character of “accounts of the events of that weekend” that the texts have in the first scenes, next to the tomb, and the character of “professions of faith in Jesus-Lord” that the narratives acquire.
– The texts of the Ascension are of the literary genre “Theophany,” they are written with the intention of manifesting faith in Jesus as Lord. They would be the texts appropriate for the Feast of Christ the King of the Universe. Some of them even have a strong liturgical character.
– The fact that John omits them – in parallel with John’s omission of the passage on the institution of the Eucharist – clearly shows us that there are several ways in which the evangelists proclaim faith in Jesus as the Risen Lord.
In conclusion. We are in the transition from the account of history (the death of Jesus on the cross and his burial) to the proclamation of faith in Jesus as Lord exalted by God. And all this, in the perspective of the Mission, and with the promise of the Spirit.
HEBREWS 9:28-48 and 10:19-23
Christ has entered, not into a sanctuary made with hands, a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own. For then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.
The letter to the Hebrews is a doctrinal text, written in circles close to Paul. (Tertullian says that its author is Barnabas, and Clement of Alexandria says that it was Luke who translated the original Hebrew into Greek). Addressed to Jews, possibly to Jews wishing to convert, it is based on continuous correspondences between the Old Testament and Jesus. Jesus the great Mediator (like Moses), the High Priest (only comparable to Melchizedek).
In this text, the death of Jesus is illustrated with the image of the annual Yom Kippur atonement sacrifice of the High Priest of Israel. Christ does not offer victims, but rather offers Himself, and only once, as in the death of all humans. Christ does not enter the temple, a sanctuary of stones, but enters the definitive Sanctuary, of which the earthly temple is merely a symbol.
(The following can also be read as the second reading)
EPHESIANS 1:17-23
[Therefore, I too, upon learning how you believe in the Lord Jesus and love all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you and, remembering you in my prayers, I ask:]
That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation to know Him. May He enlighten the eyes of your heart so that you may understand what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the extraordinary greatness of His power for us who believe, according to the working of His mighty strength, which He worked in Christ, raising Him from the dead and seating Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule, authority, power, and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.
And He put all things under His feet and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
The letter to the Ephesians is probably not a letter, but a treatise, almost certainly written by a disciple of Paul (the style is very different from Paul’s letters). It is one of the New Testament texts richest in its theme, which is fundamentally about the Church, the new creation and the new humanity, a compact building and a growing body, the people of God and the bride of the Messiah. The mystical aspects predominate in the letter, more than the legal ones, the power of the Spirit as the source of the unity of the Church.
The chosen text asks for light for hope; it is a writing that borders on the images of Revelation, but full of ideas, so sublime that they somewhat escape explanation: Christ is presented as a manifestation of the mighty power of God, which raises Him and ascends Him to heaven, above all creation; the Church is the fullness of God’s work, the one that completes Christ, the body of Christ, the fullness and consummation of all.
The three texts move between symbolism and message, and, together, help us understand the Ascension of the Lord. Too often we trivialize the Ascension as if it were an episode in the life of Jesus, a “final journey.”
The crucifixion, the empty tomb, are events: there were witnesses, believers or not, who could testify to them. The Incarnation, the Resurrection, and the Ascension are not events that the eyes saw. They are “events of faith.” And their accounts do not tell what the eyes saw, but what faith believed.
José Enrique Galarreta, S.J.