(Matthew 28:16-20; Mark 16:15-20; Luke 24:50-53; Acts 1:1-11).
Jesus proved over 40 days in many and varying ways that he was alive. His Resurrection is the conquest of sin and death. But the work of carrying that Good News to the ends of the earth would be the work of his Church. The Apostles are witnesses, not as passive watchers but also as active agents to proclaim his mighty deeds. The Ascension launches that era of the Church.
Jesus spends 40 days preparing his disciples to do just that. That preparation is not, however, intense theological education (though it is obvious from the Gospels it was that, too — see John 21:25). It was, above all else, preparing them to understand the coming gift of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus’ Ascension is not his “heavenly farewell tour.” Jesus goes, as he says at the Last Supper, to “prepare a place for us.” His work as Redeemer has been accomplished: man’s possibility of reconciliation to God was now objectively available. Jesus returns to his Father to “sit at his right hand,” i.e., in the power and glory due to him who “humbled himself even unto death, death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). Now that man has the means to be reconciled with God, Jesus is “judge of the living and the dead,” him who reviews and confirms those human choices for or against God. That work will find its zenith in the General Judgment on the Last Day. The Ascension stands in direct relation to that Last Day: “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” (Acts 1:11).
At the same time, Jesus is not gone. Jesus remains with us, but in another form: the Holy Eucharist. This was already made clear to the disciples on the road to Emmaus — when they recognized Jesus “in the breaking of the bread” he disappeared from their sight, not because he went away but because he was there still there with them under the appearances of bread and wine (Luke 24:30-31). He remains with us in the same way today.
Jesus teaches his disciples patience. He tells them to go to Jerusalem “and wait” for the coming of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4-5). He doesn’t say how long (though he does say “a few days”). So, Jesus is teaching us patience with the Divine Calendar: God, for whom “one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8), is not to be measured by human calculations or expectations. Isaiah long ago told us, in God’s name, that “my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor my ways your ways” (55:8-9). That’s true whether it meant waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit, the working out of God’s plans in our own lives and world, or the Second Coming (1 Thessalonians 5:1-11). I remember a picture that captures the insight well. It showed Andy Griffith and his son, Opie, from the former’s old TV show. Opie asks, “Pa, when’s Jesus coming back.” Andy answers insightfully, “Well, son, I don’t know. Anyway, Jesus put us on the welcome committee, not the planning committee.”
That same is true for the plans of our lives.
Jesus’ Ascension is the occasion for him to charge his Apostles to carry his Gospel to the ends of the earth. Once upon a time, he sent them out two-by-two to neighboring villages in Israel. Their new mission field is the world: “Go teach all nations” (Matthew 28:19; see also Acts 1:8). Their mission is two-fold, Word and Sacrament: “baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (vv. 19-20).
That is the mission of every Catholic, whether the world be far-off missions or the local mission of one’s own home and community.
So, just as the angels asked the Apostles: Why are you standing there? How are you realizing Jesus’ Great Commission in the concrete circumstances of your life? How do you bring people to the sacraments? How do you teach what you’ve been taught by him?
Today’s mystery is depicted in art by the 15th-century “Italian” artist, Andrea Mantegna. His painting shows the details of the Ascension as recounted in the Acts of the Apostles.
As in most Ascension paintings, there are earthly and heavenly dimensions since, as we saw on Good Friday, the “veil in the Temple” has been torn. On earth, we have 11 Apostles, four on the left and seven on the right. I am not sure if there is another head behind the second man on the left in the second row, or if that is rock. It can’t be Matthias — Acts does not recount the selection of Matthias to replace Judas until after the Ascension. The four on the left are probably the Apostolic inner core: the young John next to Mary, at the center of earthly events; Peter (in usual gold) in the middle, maybe James on the end standing and perhaps Peter’s brother Andrew kneeling. The other Apostles are less identifiable.
In heaven, Jesus is central, surrounded by 11 angels. In his left hand, he bears his standard of victory, emblazoned with the cross, in his right, he gestures in blessing.