As they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight. While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going, suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.” (Acts 1:10-11)
This Thursday, we will celebrate the Solemnity of the Ascension of our Lord, another significant feast during the Easter Season. This is a very important feast for us as we reflect on the end goal of our lives – eternal life with God in heaven! Allow me to offer you some food for thought.
Three days after Jesus was crucified, he rose from the dead and appeared to several of his followers. He then ascended into heaven where, as we proclaim every Sunday in the Nicene Creed, he “is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come to judge the living and the dead and his kingdom will have no end.” The gospels give a variety of time lines for his ascension, as well as different locations. The Gospel of Mark, which is the earliest and shortest of the four gospels, does not clearly indicate when or where Jesus ascended. We read that, “Afterward, he appeared to the eleven as they were reclining at table.” After speaking to them, “he was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God” (Mk 16:14,19). The other gospels are more specific but they do not agree with each other regarding the details of time and place. The Gospel of John indicates Jesus’ ascension occurs in Jerusalem sometime between his encounter with Mary Magdalene on the morning of his resurrection and his appearance to the disciples that evening (cf. Jn 20: 17ff). Matthew’s Gospel doesn’t specify when Jesus ascended but its last mention of Jesus speaking to his disciples is in Galilee (cf. Mt 28:16). Luke’s Gospel, like John’s, indicates that it happened on the day of the resurrection but in Bethany where he had led his disciples (cf. Lk 24:50). In the Acts of the Apostles, however, we read that Jesus “presented himself alive after his suffering, by many proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days” (Acts 1:3) before “he was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received him out of their sight” (Acts 1:9).
A literalist might get upset about these temporal and geographic discrepancies. A careful study of the Bible reveals, however, that, as it is with so many other details, the details provided of the time and place of the resurrection have theological, not historical, significance. In John’s Gospel, for example, Jerusalem – and its temple – are important because Jesus is seen as the new temple and he leads us to the New Jerusalem – heaven. The authors of Matthew and Luke, on the other hand, see Jerusalem as the center of Jewish corruption and rejection of Jesus as Lord so they place the Ascension outside of Jerusalem. But, despite these discrepancies in the details, the fact of the Ascension remains central to our faith.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church offers an excellent teaching on the Ascension. In §659 of the Catechism, we read:
“So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.” Christ’s body was glorified at the moment of his Resurrection, as proved by the new and supernatural properties it subsequently and permanently enjoys. But during the forty days when he eats and drinks familiarly with his disciples and teaches them about the kingdom, his glory remains veiled under the appearance of ordinary humanity. Jesus’ final apparition ends with the irreversible entry of his humanity into divine glory, symbolized by the cloud and by heaven, where he is seated from that time forward at God’s right hand.
Drawing from several of the scriptural accounts of our Lord’s post-resurrection appearances, the Church teaches that Christ’s body was glorified at his Resurrection, but his full glory did not become apparent until his Ascension. The Catechism goes on to explain in successive paragraphs:
- 660 The veiled character of the glory of the Risen One during this time is intimated in his mysterious words to Mary Magdalene: “I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (Jn 20:17). This indicates a difference in manifestation between the glory of the risen Christ and that of the Christ exalted to the Father’s right hand, a transition marked by the historical and transcendent event of the Ascension.
- 663 Henceforth Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father: “By ‘the Father’s right hand’ we understand the glory and honor of divinity, where he who exists as Son of God before all ages, indeed as God, of one being with the Father, is seated bodily after he became incarnate and his flesh was glorified.”
- 664 Being seated at the Father’s right hand signifies the inauguration of the Messiah’s kingdom, the fulfillment of the prophet Daniel’s vision concerning the Son of man: “To him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.” After this event the apostles became witnesses of the “kingdom [that] will have no end”.
Whereas the Resurrection assured our Lord’s followers that he was alive, the Ascension gave them – and us – definitive assurance that God’s kingdom has no end. As we approach the end of the Easter Season and continue to reflect on the meaning and significance of the mysteries of this great Season, let us be encouraged to follow the example of the first disciples and witness to everyone the new life our Lord offers in his Resurrection and the promise of entry into his eternal kingdom when he returns in glory!