The Ascension – feast of Christian hope

Ascensiontide is the shortest liturgical season of the Christian calendar, lasting a mere ten days, from the feast of the Ascension, last Thursday, to the feast of Pentecost, next Sunday. Today, the Sunday between these two great feasts, is something of an orphan, an hiatus suspended between Jesus’ return to the Father and the transforming arrival of the Holy Spirit.

It's easy to forget that when Jesus ascended into heaven, he didn’t divest himself of the human nature he shares with us. On the contrary, it is the man, Jesus, as it is also the Son of God, who returned to his and our Father. And it is the man, Jesus, as it is also the Son of God, who, now ‘seated at the right hand of the Father’ in heaven, intercedes for us. Being one of us, the Word made flesh intercedes for us with a human voice. So Ascensiontide reminds us that our human nature, in all its variety and vulnerability, has been taken up by Jesus into the divine life, which he shares with his and our Father. Now, in Jesus, we too share in God’s life.

Our wounded humanity that, in this life, so often weighs us down and sometimes messes us up, has been taken, healed and transfigured, into the divine presence. The Ascension reassures us that God embraces our humanity not only when we are moving towards Him in love but even when we're spiralling downwards in the self-destructive behaviour we call ‘sin’.

We can never put ourselves beyond God’s reach and loving gaze, even when we lock ourselves up in the dark. Ascensiontide reminds us that we have been brought home; in Christ, we have already arrived at our final, fulfilling goal: in his person, the firstborn from the dead, our human nature has been glorified and welcomed into God’s presence.

The Ascension, in other words, makes the purpose of the Resurrection resoundingly clear: we rise with him into the glory that is God’s life. When Jesus ascended to the Father, he promised to send us the gift that would unite our human nature with God’s own life. He promised us the gift of the Holy Spirit, the love of the Father for his Son and the Son’s love for his and our Father, who, if we allow him, will draw us into their love, sharing their life, as Christ shares ours.

When the Holy Spirit sweeps over us in the wind and flame of Pentecost, God gives us the capacity to love as he loves; to see and hear one another as he sees and hears others, as opposed to seeing and hearing only what we want to see and hear. The Spirit prises open our hearts and minds, making us, as vulnerable as Jesus was in this life, and thus able to love from the heart. In particular, the Holy Spirit reaches into those parts of our lives that are troubled, muddled and struggling, to breathe new life into us, and to take us home.

The Ascension, then, is the quintessential feast of Christian hope. The promise of Christ is that, in him, this world, despite all that might appear as evidence to the contrary, will be brought home to his and our Father. In the resurrection, we don’t just survive death: we rise into endless happiness, the perfect communion of life and love with God and one another, for which we were created.