A homily for the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord, May 29, 2022
Acts 1:1-11, Heb 9:24-28; 10:19-23, Lk 24:46-53
Years ago, in an episode of St. Elsewhere, the doctor played by Howie Mandel dies on the operating table and opens his eyes in Heaven, where he sees former patients celebrating in a beautiful countryside.
He asks one of the patients when he would see God, and then Howie Mandel taps Howie Mandel on the shoulder, introducing himself as The Almighty.
“Everyone sees me differently,” God explains, “because I created each of you in my image and likeness, and to you, I look like you.”
Fascinating interpretation, yes?
Then, back on Earth, the surgeons at St. Eligius Hospital revive Howie’s character and he leaves Heaven. For the time being.
In our passage today from the Acts of the Apostles, Jesus’ followers look to the sky as The Lord ascends to take his place at the right hand of the Father. In Luke’s Gospel, Christ is described as being taken out of the Apostles’ sight.
In all of the Scriptures, in all of our learned dissections of theology, and in all of our deepest and most closely held beliefs, the Feast of the Ascension marks the end of Jesus’ time walking on Earth with his fellow humans and the resumption of his transcendent reign in Heaven alongside the Father, two persons of the Trinity sending forth the third, the Holy Spirit.
But in his Ascension, does Jesus actually go anywhere? To a platinum-lined cloud in the sky? To an invisible satellite of some sort?
Or does he ascend to a higher plane of existence, one that overlays all of the universes our Triune God created In The Beginning? Because it’s also our deeply, closely held belief that Christ is everywhere, in everyone and everything.
In his Ascension, Jesus leaves behind the last vestiges of his human physicality. The carpenter’s body was tortured and executed at Golgotha and laid to rest in a borrowed hole in a rock. When Jesus rose that Easter morning, he could be seen and touched — just ask Thomas — but his post-Resurrection presence was something new, something human yet far more, something glorious.
His physical presence was a bridge to the Ultimate, and when he transitioned to the spiritual plane, Jesus brought with him his firsthand knowledge of what it means to live as a man.
The Galilean’s experiences with dirt and sickness and lies and deceit and splinters and calluses and sore muscles and the joy of family and friends only add to Divine Wisdom, and all of humankind is better because of it.
But … Heaven.
Jesus.
Ascends.
To Heaven.
Rises on a cloud, we’re told. Disappears from his disciples’ sight as they’re blinded by the sun.
How are we supposed to experience the Ascension in our lives?
We rely on Scriptural accounts of the Ascension because, frankly, that’s all we have. The Apostles witnessed the departure of their friend and rabbi with eyes filtered by thousands of years’ understanding of the physical world.
They relied on the Book of Genesis to describe the known world as being sandwiched in a dome between the water of the sky and the water of the seas. Heaven is up there ⇑ and The Bad Place is down there ⇓, so when someone leaves the Earth, they go someplace, up or down.
The Apostles relied on the Second Book of Kings to describe how the prophet Elijah was taken up to Heaven on a chariot of fire amid a whirlwind.
If a fiery horse carriage was good enough for Elijah…
And the Apostles relied on Jesus’ words, when he repeatedly counseled them that he would be going home to his Father, and that he would prepare a place for them in his Heavenly kingdom.
Yes, that sounds like a visible, touchable, walkable, smell-able place, with or without a ZIP code.
And even today, we conclude the Nicene Creed with words that date back 1,700 years:
… the Communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.
That, too, speaks of Heaven as something physical, someplace physical.
And yet …
We believe, we know to the core of our being, that God is always here among us.
So: Heaven? Up there? Up … where? All around?
We’ll have to leave the final answer to this mystery for now, trusting that we’ll know the details when we receive our heavenly rewards.
But until then, we can ponder joyously simple theological theories, like Belinda Carlisle’s lyrics:
They say in Heaven, love comes first
We’ll make Heaven a place on Earth
Ooh, Heaven is a place on Earth
A place with God Who Is Love.
