Ascension

Readings: Acts 1:1-11; Hebrews 9:24-28, 10:19-23; Luke 24:46-53

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Last Tuesday, twenty-one people, 
nineteen of them young children,
were killed in the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
Ten days earlier, ten people, all of them Black, 
were killed in a racist hate crime in Buffalo, New York. 
And lest we forget, distracted by fresh horrors,
some 4000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed so far
in Russia’s unjust war in their country. 

I find myself thinking that it would be awfully nice
to be able to rise like Jesus up above this earth,
to enter a place of eternal heavenly rest
above the sorrow and pain that human inflicts on human, 
above the violence and madness that infects us,
above the self-interest and complacency that make us
go on as if these sorts of things are normal or tolerable.
It would be nice to escape this earth we have soaked
with the blood and tears of the innocent.

But the Ascension is not about escape.
It is not about Jesus being plucked from this vale of tears.
It is not about Jesus leaving behind the world’s sorrows,
and even less about him leaving behind we who are sorrowing.
We pray in our liturgy this day:
“he ascended, not to distance himself from our lowly state
but that we, his members, might be confident of following
where he, our Head and Founder, has gone before.”
He ascended not to separate himself 
from the blood and tears of the innocent,
but to bring that pain into the healing light of God.
He ascended not to leave us behind
but so that he might be our great high priest in heaven,
interceding for us before the Father through the Spirit.
He ascended so that our lowly state might touch eternity.

In the Eucharistic Prayer, 
after the gifts have been consecrated—
gifts of bread and wine that we offer
as symbols of our loves and labors,
the bread of life and affliction,
the wine of joy and cup of sorrow,
now transformed into the body and blood of Christ—
the priest prays in our name:
“command that these gifts be borne
by the hands of your holy Angel
to your altar on high
in the sight of your divine majesty,
so that all of us, who through this participation at the altar
receive the most holy Body and Blood of your Son,
may be filled with every grace and heavenly blessing.”
In our celebration of the Eucharist, 
Christ becomes once more present among us,
and is once more lifted up by the angels,
and, as our great high priest, lays our human lives—
their joys and hopes, their anxieties and sorrows—
upon the heavenly altar,
so that we, who receive him at this earthly altar,
might taste eternity in him.

In the days that have followed since last Tuesday,
various media outlets have published pictures 
of the twenty-one people who were murdered.
Each of them is heart-breaking and gut-wrenching, 
but one has repeatedly caught my eye.
It is the picture of Jacklyn Cazares, age nine.
It is a picture from her first Holy Communion,
in her white dress, with a crown of white flowers in her hair.
She smiles with the joy of that day,
that day her life was laid by Christ on the altar on high,
that day she was filled with every grace and heavenly blessing.
Without in any way ceasing to be heart-breaking,
it is for me also an image of hope:
hope in Jesus Christ risen and ascended,
hope amid terror and strife,
hope for life and healing 
in God’s eternal light.

Hope, however, is not simply consolation.
Hope is also challenge.
Hope challenges us to ask, even as we mourn,
what is God calling us to do?
Hope tells us that, even if we cannot fix the world,
even if we cannot absolutely guarantee
that such horrors will never happen again, 
we also are not allowed to do nothing.

The U.S. bishops have noted several concrete measures
that could be tried to reduce the incidence of gun violence:
from mandatory background checks for gun purchases,
to improved mental health services,
to federal laws that criminalize gun trafficking,
to an honest assessment of the effect on people
of the images of violence that pervade our society.
We cannot know for sure 
that any of these things will save lives,
but hope calls us at least to try.

But that is not the only role that hope has to play.
So many in our society live
with a pervasive sense of hopelessness,
a hopelessness that leads people 
to lash out against the world.
This seems to have been the case 
with the killer in Uvalde,
who was bullied at school
and faced conflict at home,
who saw no hope in the world
that his life could ever be different.
Here is where the challenge of hope,
the challenge of following Jesus,
becomes really difficult.
The governor of Texas called him 
“the face of pure evil,”
but, looking with eyes of faith, love, and hope 
we should see a broken child of God,
starving for hope.

To see in this way is, of course, 
impossible for us to do
apart from God’s gift of grace.
But we who have been lifted up with Christ,
whose lives have been laid by him on the altar on high,
have been filled with every grace and heavenly blessing
and given the mind of Christ with which to see.
And he calls us now, not to escape, 
but to be his body in the world,
a world soaked with the blood 
and tears of the innocent,
a world hungry for hope, 
hope that we make visible in our actions.
May God strengthen us 
for this task to which he calls us,
may God raise up the dead 
and comfort the sorrowing,
and may God have mercy on us all.

Ascension

Readings: Acts 1:1-11; Hebrews 9: 24-28, 10:19-23; Luke 24:46-53

Before he ascends into heaven,
Jesus recalls to his followers what they have seen—
his life, his death, his resurrection—
and says, “You are witnesses of these things.”
“You are witnesses.”
On the one hand, it is a statement
that they have been present
and have seen these wondrous things take place.
But it is also a call
to not simply be witnesses,
but also to bear witness.

To be a witness
you don’t have to do anything
but be there and have your eyes open,
but to bear witness
you must be willing
to get on the stand
and give public testimony
to what you have seen.
The difference between being a witness
and bearing witness
becomes particularly clear in cases
of what we call “witness intimidation.”
Often—all too often in our own city—
people might be witnesses to a crime,
but are not willing to bear witness
because they fear for their safety
or the safety of their family,
because they do not believe
that the police can protect them from reprisal.

Jesus says to his disciples, however,
that no matter how intimidating it may be,
no matter what threats they may face,
because they have been witnesses,
they must now bear witness.
Throughout his earthly ministry,
Jesus has been God’s faithful witness,
speaking God’s truth whatever the consequences,
showing God’s love to the unlovable,
manifesting in his words and actions
the reality of God’s kingdom.
At his Ascension, Jesus bestows on his disciples
a share in this ministry of witness.
But he does not leave them
to do this on their own;
rather, he says to them,
“you will receive power
when the Holy Spirit comes upon you,
and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem,
throughout Judea and Samaria,
and to the ends of the earth.”
The Spirit will be given to them
so they can both be witnesses
and bear witness.

In the book of Acts,
the Holy Spirit gives the apostles
eyes to see the work of God
that is ongoing in their midst,
enabling them to discern the new reality
that the Spirit is creating.
It is the Spirit who enables them to see
that the Gentiles, whom they had formerly viewed
as “outsiders” and “unclean,”
have now been brought
into the community of God’s people
and made clean through the blood of Christ.
Likewise, it is the Spirit who enables them to see
that the power of Imperial Rome,
which claims to dominate the known world
is something they did not need to fear,
and before which they do not need to bow,
because it is nothing compared to the power of God,
which has raised Jesus from the dead.
The Spirit gives them eyes to see,
to be witnesses to God’s work,
and the same Spirit empowers them to bear witness,
despite the “witness intimidation” that they face
from the religious and political authorities of their day.

We might say that the Spirit
is God’s “witness protection program.”
But, unlike what we see in the movies and on television,
God’s witness protection program is not a matter
of hiding people away and giving them fake identities.
Rather, God’s witness protection program
puts them on the streets and in the public square,
prodding them to proclaim
their identities at disciples of and witnesses to Jesus,
giving them confidence to walk along
what the letter to the Hebrews calls
“the new and living way”
that Jesus has opened up for us.
It is not a promise that they will not suffer,
but rather that the meaning of their suffering
has already been transformed
in the resurrection and ascension of Jesus.

And this work of the Spirit
goes on in our day as well.
Last week saw the passing
of Fr. Daniel Berrigan,
the controversial Jesuit priest
who for 94 years
was a consistent apostle of Christ’s peace,
protesting war and the arms race,
speaking out for the rights of the defenseless,
from children in the womb to people with AIDS.
When threatened, he was not intimidated,
but doubled-down on his life of witness;
whether in the pulpit,
on the streets,
or in a jail cell,
he was a constantly irritating presence
to people of all sorts of political perspectives—
not unlike Jesus,
in whose ministry of witness he shared.
Dan Berrigan walked the new and living way of Jesus,
knowing that through Baptism
he had already died
and was risen with Christ;
he believed that through the Spirit,
God’s promise from on high,
he was in God’s witness protection program,
and that nothing could separate him
from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

As for the apostles,
as for Dan Berrigan,
so too for us.
In ascending to his Father,
Christ has promised us his Spirit,
who makes us witnesses,
giving us eyes to see the signs and wonders
that God works in our midst,
and the courage to give testimony,
to bear witness to what we have seen.
We too, through our Baptism
and the Spirit’s gift in Confirmation,
are in God’s witness protection program,
not hiding away from the intimidating task
of proclaiming Jesus crucified and risen,
not disguising our identity as Christians—
embarrassed by our belief
or fearful of giving offense—
but being willing to speak
of the transformative presence in our lives
of Jesus Christ through the Spirit,
not in order to imposed our beliefs on others,
but so that those whom we meet
may themselves be witnesses and bear witness
to the reality of God’s presence in the world.