Breath of the Spirit

RVC’s Weekly Spiritual Essay

May 8, 2005: ASCENSION OF JESUS

Readings

Acts 1:1-11

Ephesians 1:17-23

Matthew 28:16-20

(For those who celebrate Ascension on the Seventh Sunday of Easter)

No action of the risen Jesus creates more problems than his ascension. Accustomed to understanding this event against the background of our Lucan liturgical chronology, we presume every Christian biblical author teaches that Jesus ascended into heaven 40 days after his resurrection and nine days before the Holy Spirit arrives.

We forget that this traditional, orderly scenario is contained only in Luke’s “chronological theology.” We find it no place else in the Christian Scriptures. John locates the resurrection, ascension and the Spirit’s arrival during one 24 hour period. Mark and Matthew mention just the resurrection. Paul, the earliest Christian author, seems to interchange the resurrection and ascension, using each when he’s referring to the other – as he does in our Ephesians passage.

In Matthew’s “great commission” – today’s gospel pericope – the evangelist mentions nothing about an ascension. And even if we think he’s describing an event parallel to Luke’s ascension narrative, Matthew’s “mountain” is in Galilee – at least 60 to 70 miles north of Luke’s Mount of Olives. Such contradictions force us to focus not so much on the actual event as the meaning which our sacred authors are trying to convey by narrating the event.

Matthew and Luke believe it’s essential that Jesus’ followers carry on his ministry. Luke demonstrates his conviction by having Jesus outline the geographical path his disciples are to follow in that endeavor. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you,” Jesus promises. “And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” No grass will grow under their evangelizing feet.

Without being as specific, Matthew includes some of the same elements. Though there’s no special mention of receiving the Holy Spirit, Jesus tells his disciples, “Go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”

Scholars believe the Trinitarian baptismal formula (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) only surfaced in 2^nd and 3^rd generation Christian communities. Paul seems to have baptized during the first generation only in the “name of Jesus.” If these scholars are correct, then the biblical church’s understanding of what it meant to carry on the ministry of Jesus wasn’t a static experience. As people gave themselves over to the risen Jesus, they more deeply understood what he expected of them and how they were to approach their ministry. They were always changing, always growing.

That’s why today’s Ephesians passage is so important. Paul insists that his community have “knowledge” of the risen Jesus. As a Jew, Paul understood knowledge to be an actual experience of something or someone. He prays that, with hearts enlightened by the Spirit, “. . . you may know what is the hope for us who believe.” By experiencing Jesus among us, we, his body, receive “the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.” In other words, as imitators of Jesus, we’re continually going from one state of fullness to another. Just when we think we know everything we can possibly know about Jesus, we experience him in a different person or situation. Only then do we realize that we can (and must) evolve our faith even more.

Being a follower of Jesus means we’re constantly on the move; if not along a geographical plane, certainly along a psychological one. No matter how we understand Jesus’ ascension, it conveys a movement, not just on Jesus’ part, but also on our own.