Scripture Reflections
THE ASCENSION OF THE LORD
ACTS 1:1-11
EPHESIANS 1:17-23
or HEBREWS 9: 24-28; 10:19-23
LUKE 22:46-53
Our neighbor died last month. I got the call from his dear wife close to noon on Friday of Easter week. Granted, I was stunned. I thought he might live longer so many in the parish prayed for him. He was a young and vibrant dad and grandpa. Always working in the yard or riding his recumbent bike around the block. He wore a smile of contentment. His wife’s tears over the phone invited me to come which I did, bringing with me the Church’s rites for the dead. Cancer was the thief; yet it brought out of this very dear man a faith that made his witness even in death, a light for all who knew him.
His three daughters, their husbands and others surrounded John’s bed. One sat on the bed holding her dad’s hand. One at the foot weeping, like Mary or Martha, I thought. The other standing strong near the door with her husband. And his wife kneeling by his bedside stroking his face. He was well loved and while we prayed together, I could not help but think that this gentle man, the patriarch in the school of St. Joseph, was a witness to love at its best.
We told stories of his goodness, his silliness, his idiosyncrasies that broke through tears with laughter. He was more than cancer. He was the dad who blew leaves out of his daughter’s gutters, and who fixed their lawn mower, and who stood by his family like an unmoved anchor.
Now, he was showing them how to die with dignity and emerging hope. When Jesus ascended into heaven, after having shown his resurrected self to his followers, he was ready to leave and to pass on to all of us the commission to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth. Big order for the little time we all have upon this earth. Watching the room with John and his family letting him go, inch by inch, I wondered about the Apostles who watched Jesus ascend to the heavens with that same sense of loss and “what do we do now” kind of feeling. They stood mummified staring up to the heavens. The two men in white who showed up in the tomb some weeks before and who asked, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?” appeared again!
This time, from the heavens, they asked, “Why are you standing there looking at the sky?” Good question. Like the Fourth of July fireworks, we stand looking up waiting for the next one, hoping it is more brilliant and wonderful than the preceding blast. But this was not the fireworks. This was the Lord, taking his proper place at the right hand of his Father and bidding his followers to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit which promised to empower them to carry on the work of God.
John died just four days after Pope Francis. The greater world followed Francis’ popemobile down the winding streets of Rome to Santa Maria Maggiore where his body was entombed, his pastoral image of the Good Shepherd above the crypt. A public death of a man who gave witness to the great works of mercy, not with his family around his bed, but with the whole world standing around a man who shook up our thinking asking all of us to smell like sheep, that is to be with the vulnerable. No judgments, just mercy!
Pope Francis and John died and were buried. Jesus died was buried and rose up out of death.
The tomb had no power over him; death was swallowed up in victory. Jesus, in that village of Bethany where he gathered his followers for the final drama of his earthly life, brought us all to the precipice of promise. It was not an ending, but a beginning. It was not the final farewell, but a door opening to a future where the Church would be born and where Christ entered the sanctuary of heaven itself so that he would appear before the Father on our behalf. Pointing from the heavens to his sheep with sheer love and a sense that his work on earth was fulfilled, Jesus smiled at his Father, and he smiled at us.
What is the difference between John leaving, the pope leaving and Jesus leaving? Maybe I should ask, what is the same? Well, first, their work was accomplished. Their legacies encrypted in history. The fruits of their lives begging to live on; but more importantly, to witness to the Good News that Jesus wrote with his life. And which Pope Francis and John modeled each in their own worlds.
And isn’t that our call, too? We are Jesus’ insurance policy. When he promised to send the Holy Spirit to empower us to carry on his work in the world, those were not just poetic words scribbled on a Hallmark card only to be forgotten when the clouds took him from their sight. That power is yours and mine. The commission given to his followers is our commission, too. We must not stay too long looking up at the sky, for the Lord will return and he will ask us many things, but mostly, did we use his power, the power of the Holy Spirit, to build his Kingdom. Pope Francis certainly did. And John did, too. His family gathered around him in death gave witness to that.
