The Ascension of the Lord

In today’s first reading we are told that while Jesus was lifted up to the heavens a cloud took him from their sight. In the Old Testament, the cloud is a cultic symbol that denotes the hiddenness of God. The heavens was where God was thought to dwell, hidden away from the prying gaze of mere mortals. In the book of genesis we hear the story of the tower of Babel. The stated goal of the tower of Babel was to have its top piercing the clouds and reaching heaven. This story has always been taken as a metaphor for the Promethean hubris of humans who believe that it is possible to transgress the human/divine separation. They aspired to be gods and, drunk with an exaggerated sense of their power, thought that divinity was within their grasp. In order to teach them some humility, God scattered them across the four corners of the earth and gave them different languages so that they could not understand one another and therefore would not succumb to the human hubris of thinking that by their own power they could become gods.

It is in this sense that the Church Fathers very quickly recognized that Pentecost, where all people could suddenly understand Peter in their own foreign languages was the final reversal of this punishment from God and the beginning of a new era. In fact, it is also possible to see the Ascension in this way. It is true that in the Ascension, we see the second person of the Trinity returning to his rightful place, at the right hand of God. But the second person of the Trinity does not ascend to heaven exactly the same as he descended from heaven. He now ascends as both human and divine. In Jesus’ Ascension, humanity enters the fullest mystery of the Godhead. In Jesus, a human person pierces the clouds, and enters the heavens of full communion with God. But this time, it is not a plan wrought of human hubris – rather it is orchestrated by God himself. Pope Benedict XVI says that the Ascension means that humanity has found and everlasting place in God. But the how and when of the fulfilment of this plan of God remains shrouded in the mystery of who God is. For this reason, when the disciples ask Jesus in the first reading today if it is now that he will restore the Kingdom, he reminds them that it is not for them to know the times or the seasons that the Father has established by his authority.

I think that the Ascension reminds us that even though Jesus was the fullness of the revelation of the Father, this revelation does not remove the mystery of who God is. God’s mystery is enduring. As St. Augustine says: “The whole life of the good Christian is a holy longing. What you long for, as yet, you do not see; but longing makes in you room that shall be filled, when that which you are to see shall come.” We need to be filled with the longing for God, a hidden God, who briefly appeared on the face of this earth – not to take away the mystery of who God is - but simply to whet our appetites and lead us more deeply into this mystery.

Whenever I go to Evangelical or Pentecostal church services, what I find missing the most is a sense of mystery. It is in many ways ironic, because the Pentecostals accuse us of idolatry by adding a whole lot of things to our liturgy that are not biblical. Consequently, when you walk into a Evangelical church, all you see is the drums, guitars and microphones and a lectern. Nothing else. No mystery. I say it is ironic, even paradoxical, because our Catholic liturgy is a lot more busy – you walk into a Catholic Church and you are confronted with myriads of images, gold encrusting, stain-glass windows – a feast of colors, a banquet for the eyes. Paradoxically, this feast of the five senses in a Catholic liturgy leaves you hungering for more – and if properly done, directs your gaze heavenward. The Catholic liturgy breathes, there is silence that leads you gently and quietly into mystery and does not attempt to brashly pierce the clouds of God’s hidden mystery. In most Pentecostal and Evangelical liturgies, the aim seems to be to almost pull back the veil and manifest the full beatific vision here and now. The praise and worship is euphoric, there is no silence – which is why I often come away from an Pentecostal/Evangelical liturgy feeling empty.

In contrast, our Catholic sacramental life has a spareness to it. There is spareness to our liturgy that allows for mystery, for a sense of longing, a lack that is not completed which allows the liturgy to breathe. Louis Marie Chauvet, who has arguably had the most influence on Catholic sacramental theology in the 20th century, talks about this spareness and gives the example of the Eucharist. It is true that Jesus says that he is the bread of life and whoever eats his flesh will never hunger again. However, as we all know, when we receive the Eucharist, Jesus the bread of Life, we still need to eat afterwards. The Eucharist, even though it symbolizes the heavenly banquet, is not literally an earthly banquet, there is a sparseness about it, a certain lack – that leads us into mystery. In fact Paul castigates the Corinthians for getting drunk and gorging themselves at the Eucharist. This detracts from the mystery, if we are satiated there is no space in us to welcome the mystery, the longing for God.

The Protestant theologian Karl Barth once critiqued the Catholic Church for wanting to put Christ everywhere: the presence of Christ in the person of the priest, the real presence in the Eucharist, in a way that does not give due importance to the fact that in a very real way Jesus has departed from history. But this to miss the fundamental aspect of mystery that the Eucharist leads us into, beautifully expressed in the hymn of St. Thomas Aquinas to the Blessed Sacrament:

I devoutly adore you, O hidden Deity, Truly hidden beneath these appearances. My whole heart submits to you, And in contemplating you, it surrenders itself completely.

On this day that we celebrate the Ascension of our Lord may we surrender ourselves completely to this mystery as we await the day that we shall be taken up with him into the fullness of God’s being and presence.

Questions for reflection

1. Does the liturgy that I attend on a weekly/daily basis lead me into an appreciation of the mystery of who God is?
2. In what ways might my own spiritual and devotional practices be thinly veiled attempts to pierce the clouds of a supposed separation between the human and divine?