The Ascension of the Lord

Fr Dominic’s Homily

Jesus appears to his disciples in Galilee for the 10th time after his resurrection and gives a cosmic commission and tells us to spread the good news not just to the whole world but to all creation. What is the good news? That the reign of Satan is over.

So these are the final instructions given to us by Jesus until we see him again at the end of time. He reminds us of the importance of Baptism and of Faith in him. Both are needed.

This is the final appearance of Jesus to his apostles. It’s the 10th apparition after his resurrection and it’s the 40th day after his resurrection.

The Ascension of Our Lord can be difficult to understand. It seems a bit ambiguous.

When Jesus leaves the disciples in this way – is it an end of an era or the beginning of a new one? It differs from the Assumption of Mary in that Mary was taken up by God whereas Jesus raises himself under his own power.

For the disciples it must seem that Jesus is leaving them again. First he was crucified on the cross – which they didn’t really understand. Then after returning to them and explaining a few things he then leaves again!

The disciples must have wondered what was going to happen next. For us now it’s still difficult for us to understand – and we have detailed theology books explaining everything. The disciples had to live it and make sense of things as they went along.

But to think of the ascension of Jesus as simply an end to thing misses the point. While it was the end of Jesus' physical presence with his disciples, it actually marked the beginning of Jesus' presence with them in a new way.

You can’t be everywhere if you are just a physical person. And Jesus needed to be everywhere from that point. It is the linking together of heaven and earth. It was the beginning of something new. So the disciples also needed to ascend but to a new level in their understanding of Jesus.

Jesus' last words to his disciples are that they should be his witnesses and ambassadors to the ends of the earth. You and I now have now inherited the task of participating in God’s plan and helping to bring the reign of God on Earth. That’s the power of this feast.

God wants all nations to hear the good news that Jesus has come to set us free from sin and has won for us a kingdom of peace and joy that will last forever. And we have the help of the Holy Spirit in this world wide mission.

Jesus empowers us through the outpouring of his Holy Spirit to become involved in his work of redemption.

So the ascension of Jesus is not just a rather ambiguous end to the story of Jesus. It is the start of something new in God’s great plan of salvation. The kingdom of God has now been fully inaugurated as Jesus now sits at the right hand of the Father.