Ascension
Acts 1: 1-11; Eph 1: 17-23; Mt 28: 16-20
Deacon Larry Brockman
Faith! The Apostles are called after their 40 days of contact with the Risen Lord, to have Faith going forward. And indeed, this is the universal message to all of us about belief in God, the Kingdom of God, and an after-life. We have got to have Faith as we live life in this world.
The gift that Jesus gave us to sustain us in our Faith is the hope inspired by the Holy Spirit. For while we do not have Jesus physically present in our lives as the Apostles did, we know in our hearts that Jesus was here, suffered and died and was raised from the dead, and now, has ascended into heaven because we believe in what we read in the Gospel. The gift of the Spirit sustains and enriches that belief in us. The Spirit inspires us with the Hope of the Kingdom. Indeed, “Blessed are those who believe and have not seen”. And that is all of us.
Didn’t you find it odd the way the Gospel describes the Apostles this morning? It says they worshipped him when they gathered on the mountain that last time, but…“they doubted”. I find it absolutely incredible that “they doubted” after all they had experienced. Jesus ate and drank and related to them after they had seen him suffer and die a horrible death on the cross. He had been with them for 40 days. And now, right before their eyes, after doubting, they saw him raised up into the heavens. The two men, angels I suppose, say not once, but twice, that Jesus was taken up into heaven- another miracle in the long line of miracles these people had seen first-hand, even to those who doubted. Why does the Gospel point out that these men doubted?
Well, it is human nature for us to doubt the other worldly, the life beyond, something beyond what is right in front of us. In fact, the passage of time dulls the memory that people have of real events. There are those who don’t believe in the lunar landing. There are those who don’t believe that the Holocaust happened in Germany during World War II, even though there is well documented evidence that these things happened, including photographs and personal testimonies.
The message is that we cannot accept the truth by ourselves. We need help; we need something beyond reality to inspire us to accept the truth and believe in it.
Here we are, two thousand years after the events in today’s readings occurred, called to believe that this man, born of humble origins, said and did everything recorded in the Gospels. That takes Faith, and it is a faith based on what we hear, not what we have seen. We are prone to doubt it all when the humdrum of the real physical world comes into play. Secretly, down inside of us, the devil is trying to instill doubt in our faith. He whispers constantly that what you see is all there is. Enjoy that while it lasts, preserve it at all costs, because that’s all there is.
Jesus recognized that even the faith of those closest to him who had seen the events first-hand and walked with him for 40 days after the Resurrection was vulnerable- because they still doubted. So, Jesus promises to send them something after he is gone. He promises them the Holy Spirit. He tells them the Holy Spirit will give them power, and that they will be his witnesses to the end of the Earth.
So, this group of doubters will be given a gift that will transcend doubt. It will give them inspiration, and fill them with a strong sense of belief in all that they had seen and heard, So that they would hold the hope of being reunited with Jesus in the Kingdom of God, Heaven, In their hearts with steadfast faith.
And indeed, that’s just what the Holy Spirit did for these men as we will see next week during the birth of the Church, the Feast of Pentecost.
All of us need the gift of the Spirit as well. We need to accept on Faith the things we have not seen and heard first hand. and to believe that the promises Jesus made to us through the witnessing by the descendants of the Apostles are still true.
Yes, all of us who believe will be united with Jesus our Savior in the Kingdom of Heaven some day. But we need the help of the Holy Spirit to transcend the work of the devil and the influences of the secular world. Even his first hand witnesses doubted, and needed this gift to maintain their Faith.
