CT - Catholic Telegraph

Witnesses to the risen Christ

Acts of the Apostles 1:1-11. (Lectionary 058, May 28, 2006)

The reading from Acts assigned for the observance of the Ascension of the Lord is of particular interest in at least two ways. First of all, it is one of the handful of first readings that is read on a specific occasion each single year of the three-year cycle. It is important enough for the church to insist that everybody hear it every year. The reason is clear. This reading gives us the most extensive treatment of Jesus' ascension, the most detailed account of what we are celebrating.

The second way in which our reading is particularly interesting is that it constitutes a linkage between the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament. At the end of Luke's Gospel (24:50-53) we have one account of Jesus' ascension. Here, in Acts, the second volume of Luke's two-volume work, we have another. These narratives of the ascension of Jesus serve as a kind of overlap, therefore, between the story of Jesus' earthly life and ministry that is told in the Gospel and the story of the church that is told in Acts, a story that constitutes the background for the whole rest of the New Testament.

First off all, Luke very deliberately links this new work that he is beginning with his Gospel. Each is dedicated to the same individual, Theophilus. Luke reminds Theophilus, and us, what the Gospel had been about: the ministry and teaching of Jesus up to the end of His earthly association with His chosen apostles.

Next comes a section about Jesus' general activity during the time between His resurrection and His ascension. He strengthened their faith in His resurrection and He taught them still more about the kingdom of God, which had been one of His main themes during His public life. He told them also that they were to be attentive to a further development: the coming of the Holy Spirit Who would give them a new relationship with God.

The third section is concerned with a specific occasion: the day of His ascension. After all that Jesus had said about the kingdom, the disciples still seemed to think that the coming of the kingdom was to be a political event which would restore self-rule to Israel. Jesus - one more time! - tries to redirect their thinking. What they were to look for, he said, was not a political upheaval but the power of the Holy Spirit which would make them witnesses to Him "in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." In these words, Luke is giving us a kind of table of contents for the rest of Acts, a preview of how the preaching of the Gospel would unfold.

Then comes Jesus' departure. A cloud took Him from their sight. In sacred Scripture, clouds are often the sign of God's presence. Jesus returns to His Father. The apostles seem to have been taken aback and stood there looking up into the sky. Then two men in white appear, like the ones who had appeared to the puzzled women after Jesus' resurrection (cf. Luke 24:4). These heavenly messengers tell the apostles to pull themselves together and comfort them with the assurance that Jesus would come again, just as surely as they had seen Him going away. As our passage closes, we are left with the apostles waiting, as Jesus had commanded, for what would happen next.

The ascension is a kind of interim stage that marks both an end and a beginning. It marks the end of Jesus' physical, earthly presence and the beginning of the age of the church. Jesus' personal instruction of the apostles has now been concluded. They haven't grasped particularly well what He had tried to teach them about the kingdom, but now His Spirit would take over. And that Holy Spirit would guide and protect the community of faith, the church, from now own. The Spirit would continue to be with the church as its members carried out Jesus' behest to give witness to Him. That age whose beginning is marked by the ascension of Jesus is still going on. The task of giving witness to the risen Lord is still the mission in which we are all engaged as members of Christ and agents of the Holy Spirit.

But there is another way in which today's liturgical celebration involves a beginning and an end. We see the apostles poised for the beginning of the church as Jesus ascends to heaven. But we also see them alerted to the church's end, to the return of Christ when the church's mission will have been completed. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus come to conclusion in the church, the church of which we are a part. The church will find conclusion in the return of the risen Christ in glory, a return to which we, also, look forward.

For reflection and discussion

Who witnesses to the risen Christ to me?

To what extent is Jesus' return in glory an element of my spirituality?