The Ascension and Christian Hope
Situated between Easter and Pentecost, I find the Ascension is one of the most overlooked feasts on the Christian calendar, at least in the United States. Others celebrate it on a Thursday, exactly forty days after Easter, as a Holy Day of Obligation. Of course, all Sundays are Holy Days of Obligation, but by moving the celebration to Sunday, perhaps we forget its importance for our lives as Christians.
Above all, the Feast of the Ascension is a celebration of the Christian hope — that one day, Christ will return again, ushering in a New Heaven and a New Earth. After his resurrection, Jesus spends forty days with the Apostles, continuing to teach them about the Kingdom of God. He promises them a baptism with the Holy Spirit before being lifted up into the clouds. In Luke’s Gospel, we actually find the Apostles rejoicing after Jesus’s ascension into heaven. This is because they know that Christ is even more present with them then he was before, and also because they have something to hope for. The Kingdom is present “now and not yet.” We have beheld something new of God, but there is more to come.
As we see in the rest of the Acts and in the lives of the early saints, this hope perhaps the most characteristic part of the Gospel message and the Christian life. The Apostles are able to persevere in faith, working wondrous signs, because they believe that something in the world has changed, that God is present in a new way. We as Christians are called to the same hope in the Kingdom that the Apostles have. This means continually learning to place our trust in God, to detach ourselves from possessions and worldly success, and to love as though the other is made in the image of God — which, in fact, we all are.
It’s so easy to find ourselves bogged down by life’s evils, whatever they may be for us. But the promise of God beckons us to look past our own suffering to trust in God’s deliverance, even if we do not understand it here and now. If the world has treated us well, we are asked to practice a spirit of disinterest, recognizing that selfish, material priorities are not God’s priorities. However, this same spirit of disinterest is not just for ourselves but calls us out to others — if I am able to practice a detachment from material interest, I recognize that I have no more right to these material goods than those in desperate need around me. Our time and possessions become resources for the will of God, which we strive in hope to follow.
As the Easter season draws to a close, let us continue to trust in God’s promise of abundant mercy and newness of life in Christ.
