The Ascension of the Lord

I remember once on Ascension Thursday some years ago when I was campus minister in Bellingham that the student guitar group selected “Leaving on a Jet Plane” as the opening hymn at Sunday night Mass.  Most liturgists would throw up their hands in horror at the very idea of this song (and rightly so).  Still in some way, I could understand someone picking that song for this feast.  It has a melancholy refrain, referring to certain departure and uncertain reunion.

When I imagine the scene of the ascension with the apostles standing there, staring up into the sky feeling lost and at a loss over their departed master, a certain sadness colors the moment, and that song, does not seem far off the mark in terms of the mood of the moment.  The image of the ascension I have had since childhood is what artists have frequently portrayed: Jesus floating up, up, and away, entering into glory.

The Jesus whom they have known is gone.  Try as they might, they cannot bring him back, not that Jesus.  They will never again hear him preaching, never again eat with him, never again walk with him on the roads of Galilee and Judea.  Let’s admit that the angelic question is barbed.  It is not so much a question as a veiled command: Let’s get on with it.  “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky?”

One of the overlooked aspects of Jesus’ ascension has to do with the earthly implications of the ascension for the church.  Between the promise that “this Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” is the work of the church, a task bequeathed by the master builder to the 120 ordinary women and men who gathered in Jerusalem prior to Pentecost.

We might think of these 120, comprising the apostles and the first disciples, as the apprentice builders, whose work begins in earnest only when Jesus physically absents himself from them.  Evangelization takes place in obedience to the missionary mandate of Jesus: “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.”  They are given a charge to build up the church.

The Acts of the Apostles continues to build on Jesus’ commission to the church found in Matthew.  Again, though, the work is itself dependent upon the ascension, for after giving the mission statement for the church, “he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.”  The ascension is essential for the church to begin its worldwide mission and discover for itself how the church is to be built.  It is the task of the apprentice builders to continue to build the church.

On our parish feast day, let’s try a little harder to become involved.  Jesus washed the feet of his disciples.  An evangelizing community gets involved by word and deed in people’s daily lives.  Evangelizers thus take on the “smell of the sheep.”  An evangelizing community is also supportive, standing by people at every step of the way.  An evangelizing community is filled with joy.  Our parish evangelizes and is itself evangelized through the beauty of the liturgy.

We now recommit ourselves to the mission of Christ Our Hope Catholic Church in downtown Seattle as we stand to read from our parish mission statement:

“Christ Our Hope Catholic Church in downtown Seattle is a beacon of light where all are welcome….”

Paul A. Magnano

Pastor