The Ascension of the Lord: I will be with you always, until the end of times

During these times of unprecedented suffering and death due to the covid-19 pandemic, there is not a single moment that we looked up to the heavens asking for divine help and intervention.

We celebrate tody the ascension of the Lord Sunday. This marks the human Jesus’ last day on earth. Luke describes the moment of the Lord’s ascension in today’s 1^st reading from the Acts of the Apostles where Jesus “was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight.”

The ascension is one of the most misinterpreted events in Jesus life and belief of our faith. The ascension has often been portrayed in a somewhat mythological way as a gravity-defying form of levitation or the retreat of Jesus from this world to a place up, up and away.

It is significant that Jesus rested in the cloud in the Ascension. In the bible a cloud often depicts the abiding presence of God amongst the people. In the Old Testament, the pillar of cloud was the glory-cloud which indicated God’s presence leading the ransomed people of Israel out of Egypt through the wilderness (Exodus 13:22; 33:9, 10). This pillar preceded the people as they marched, resting on the ark (Exodus 13:21; 40:36). By night it became a pillar of fire (Numbers 9:17-23). In other words, the Ascension signifies not Jesus’ departure but his constant accompaniment of his disciples and the community gathered in his name—the church—as they face the challenges and troubles of this world.

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.”

The two angels were trying to say to the apostles that they were not supposed to spend their time staring nostalgically at the heavens as Jesus did not abandon them but is always with them “until the end of the age” (Matthew 28: 20). There was work to do.  There was a world waiting for the good news to be announced. Faith and hope have now to be busy about other matters, even as Christians, then and now, await his return at the end of time and the coming of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1: 5, 11). The apostles left the mountain, went into the city, and launched the greatest missionary undertaking in human history.

“All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

The Ascension is not a call of fuga mundi (escape from the world) but at the same time a calling to journey towards a much larger world where heaven and earth meet. The great commission of the Ascension today is how to announce the good news and build God’s kingdom and heaven of liberation and peace in a world enveloped with terror, division, violence and suffering. Let not our hearts be troubled, for Jesus accompanies and protects us “until the end of the age.”

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time: Imagine There’s Heaven

Photo by Mathew Thomas from Pexels

The opening lines to one of the most popular songs of John Lennon, Imagine, says, “Imagine there’s no heaven.”

Lennon invites us to imagine a world without a heaven or hell wherein he suggests that we make the best world we can here and now, since this is all this is or will be.

Indeed, many people in the ordinariness and busyness of everyday living, rarely think about either the end times or the existence of another world beyond death. For many, this is the only world and everything about life ends in the grave.

We Christians, however, imagine there is heaven which is a radically different world from which we live in. God will rise us all from the dead at the end of times to live in heaven. This is most profoundly the basis of our Christian hope and what gives purpose to our lives here on earth.

All categories and standards of this world will not apply in heaven as only God’s standards and values will apply in heaven. In the Gospel of today’s 32nd Sunday in ordinary time, Jesus describes the radical difference between life in this world and in heaven:

The children of this age marry and remarry;
but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age
and to the resurrection of the dead
neither marry nor are given in marriage.
They can no longer die,
for they are like angels;
and they are the children of God
because they are the ones who will rise.

Jesus is saying that heaven is not a prolongation of our present earthly life but an entirely new mode of existence, in which marriage and giving in marriage are unknown. Since in the new life there is no more death, there is no need for provision to perpetuate the human race.

In a profound way, Jesus invites the people of his time and all people of all times to imagine heaven which is the world that God has prepared and destined each one of us. It is a world where we shall all live again after death, in fact, there will no longer death, for we shall have eternal life. This is what we proclaim in our creed every Sunday:

I believe in …
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

We recite these words every Sunday but do we truly understand what these words mean?

I must confess that I don’t exactly and fully understand what these words mean. But Jesus’ call here is not so much to understand heaven and eternal life exactly and fully but more to hope and imagine. Jesus calls us to trust, hope and imagine a whole new world where all creation will be reunited with God. This calling is expressed beautifully in the penultimate chapter of the last book of the Bible, the book of revelation, chapter 21:

“Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people,
and he will dwell with them.
They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes.
There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain,
for the old order of things has passed away.”

Despite all the pains and suffering, despite all the sadness and despair, despite all the wars and conflicts, despite all the evils in our world today, God invites us to imagine and hope of a place and time where and when there will be true peace, joy and prosperity for all forever.

Heaven is God’s pure gift; it will only come through the power and grace of God. Thus, heaven cannot come through our human efforts and abilities. Despite all the advances in science and technology, we cannot bring about heaven. We can, however, prepare ourselves to live in heaven by our life, our behaviours, our actions and attitudes here on earth. We can also prepare the world for the ultimate arrival of heaven by making the world a better place to reflect the values in heaven. As the song goes, “to make a little heaven down here”.

In other words, our readings today, calls us to re-imagine our lives with heaven on our minds. Imagine our lives that there is heaven. This calls for radical changes in our outlook, attitude and lifestyle. We cannot bring wealth, power and fame in heaven. We can, however, bring love, peace, gratitude, humility and joy in heaven. This also implies that we need to change our mindset that we are just pilgrims on earth, we are not permanent residents here on earth, we are just passing through. All of our lives is a preparation for eternal life.