Ascension of the Lord

When the first Spiderman movie came out, I was enthralled – it was so good I was left hungering for more. I would replay in my mind again and again my favourite scenes from the movie, and I would track the blogs of ardent fans that would dish out all the latest gossip about when the sequel was coming out and whether or not it would have the same actors I had come to know and love. My two nephews, who are 5 and 7 years old had a very different reaction to their first viewing of a Spiderman movie. Instead of wanting to find out what happens in the sequel, they wanted to become Spiderman, and they started pestering their parents for Spiderman suits, which they promptly got, the next time they went to the Toy Store. And for weeks on end they dressed up as Spiderman and continued living the thrill of the Spiderman story by dressing in their Spiderman suits and jumping all over the couches in the living room shooting spider webs and capturing the baddies. As I reflect on myself and my nephews I realize that, in a way, we are similar, in that we all enjoyed the thrill that came from vicariously identifying with Spiderman and flying through the streets of New York righting wrongs and saving people. We all wanted this thrill to continue, even after the movie ended. But this is where the similarities end, because we chose radically different ways of ensuring a continuity of this thrill. I chose to wait it out, and find out if there would be more coming in the form of a sequel. My nephews chose to pursue the continuity of the thrill by using their imaginations and becoming Spiderman.

I think that these two attitudes can be applied to the different ways that the early Church reacted to the Ascension. Jesus’ life was in many ways like a movie that left you hungering for more and wondering when the sequel would be. For reasons that we are still not clear on, the early church fell into the mistaken belief that Jesus’ second coming would be very soon, and would happen during their life-times. Being convinced that the sequel was just round the corner, the early church were somewhat like me: they contented themselves with remembering and recounting to one another their favourite memories of Jesus’ life, praying together and simply waiting around till he would return. But as time went on, and Jesus’ second coming seemed to be delayed, the Early Church came to realize that they couldn’t simply be a community of memory anymore, they couldn’t just passively wait around for the sequel, like I was doing. They realized that they had to make the sequel, like my nephews did. They realized that they had to use their imaginations, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to reincarnate the spirit of Christ so that this spirit might continue to live in them.

Just as my nephews were able to become Spiderman by putting on their Spiderman suits, the Christian community came to realize that the gift of the Holy Spirit functioned in a similar way – the gift of the Holy Spirit enabled them to be clothed with Christ. In our gospel today, we hear Jesus telling his disciples to “stay in the city until they are clothed with power from on high.” They gradually came to realize that this “power on high” was the Holy Spirit who enabled them to be the sequel that they were hoping for. What is important to note is that when the Early Church realized that they had to write the sequel, they didn’t stop being a community of memory. They continued being both a community of memory and a community of the sequel. To go back to the example of my nephews, I would think that they would want to re-watch the Spiderman movie to make sure that they were imitating him in the best way, to make sure that they would be able to speak the words that he spoke and make sure that they were shooting their webs in the right way. It was the same with the Early Christian community, they would have constantly gone back to the memory of Jesus, his words and his actions in order to make sure that they were imitating him correctly in the power of the Holy Spirit. They did not stop being a community of waiting either, because they realized that even though they were writing the sequel through the power of the Spirit, this sequel could only be brought to its intended conclusion by the second coming of Christ, a coming that they longed for ardently. In the footsteps of the first Christian community, we too are called to be a community of memory, a memory that impels us to image Christ to the world, however imperfect that image may be, all the while longing for the perfection of that image that will come about when Christ returns to earth.

Questions for reflection

1. Am I filled with a longing for the second coming of Christ?
2. Does my conviction that God will bring history to a close make me blasé about how the world’s history is currently unfolding?
3. How might being clothed with the Spirit free me from my inhibitions to be Christ to others?