Christ continues to be among us, in Word and Sacrament

Homily for Ascension Year A 2014

Acts 1:1-11 • Eph 1:17-23 • Matthew 28:16-20

Introduction

Imagine a very successful businessman or woman, a CEO of a big company, or the founder of a family business built from scratch; now he or she are in their senior years and are about to retire.  Perhaps they have been grooming the successor for some years now, teaching them the ropes and trying them out on a few challenging tasks to see if they are up to it.  Now he or she hands the reins to the successor and says: “carry on now – take the company to greater heights.”

My friends, let me suggest that the Ascension of Jesus, which we celebrate today can be compared to the retirement of this CEO.  Jesus is the retiring CEO, the apostles are his successors, and the business is the Church.

Scripture and Theology

After he returns to the Father in heaven, Jesus will no longer walk the earth in the flesh.  After the Ascension, Jesus is present in the world through the Church.  He has done his part; he has laid the foundation for the Kingdom of God; now it is the turn of his close disciples to continue the work.

That is why he told the apostles: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you (Matthew 28:19-20).”  This verse, known as the Great Commission is Jesus’ way of saying: “I am no longer here in person; you have to finish the job I have started, and do it in my name, make me proud.”

What does this great commission really say?  The commission of making disciples of all nations seems to have two main tasks: “Baptising them” and “teaching them.”  That is why Church has these two main instruments for fulfilling the job given to us by Jesus: Sacraments and the Word.

·        Through the sacraments, especially the sacrament of Baptism, in which people are baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, we are reborn and made children of the Father.  And if we persist in faith and charity, living up to our baptismal promises, we can hope to be counted among those whom Jesus invites into the Kingdom of the Father. If baptism is the sacrament that opens the door for us to discipleship, the other sacraments either strengthen our discipleship like Confirmation, the Eucharist, Matrimony, Holy Orders, or they repair it when our discipleship is weakened by sin and illness, like the sacraments of Confession and Anointing of the Sick.  And so in celebrating the Sacraments today, we are simply fulfilling the instruction of our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ.

·        The second task is teaching.  Jesus commands that the apostles make disciples of all nations by teaching them to observe all those things that he has taught them.  And indeed Jesus has taught a lot of things, and if I listed them all we would be here until the cows come home.  Suffice to say that we can find all that Jesus taught, not just in the Bible, but in the Catechism, where the successors of the Apostles, the Pope and Bishops, have organized his message according to themes and applied it to today’s situation.  And so whether the Church is teaching in homilies or catechism classes, or whether it is the Pope or the bishops teaching, they are continuing the command of the Master, making disciples for him.

But Jesus is not just throwing the apostles into the water and telling them to swim or sink.  Actually he has given them the tools for the task at hand in two ways.

·        First, for three years as they have lived with Jesus, he has exposed them to the great events of our salvation. They have heard him teach them, they have seen his miracles and example of prayer and compassion, they have seen his suffering, death and resurrection.  And now tells them to preach all these things to nations. Like the retiring CEO who has been grooming his successor for several years, Jesus has indeed groomed the apostles.

·        The second thing Jesus gives them is the promise that he will continue to be with them; we heard him say: “I am with you always, until the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20).” Of course he is present all the time and everywhere, since he is the Risen Lord, who is no longer bound by space and time.  But he is also present in the Holy Spirit, who is the other advocate.  We can think of Jesus as that retired CEO whose involvement in the business is behind the scenes; perhaps he is a member of the board or even he is just a phone call away, when advice and wisdom is needed.  Jesus too is only a prayer away, as he continues to guide the Church.

Christian Life

The Apostles did indeed carry out the great commission given them by Jesus.  They made disciples, not only in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, but indeed to the ends of the earth.  They in turn passed on this baton of faith to their successors who continued his work until today, until the Good News reached even here in Atlanta, Georgia.

My friends this two-pronged approach of Word and Sacrament, continues to be the Catholic way of bringing people to Jesus even today.  Other Christian churches, believe in just the Word and perhaps baptism; but we Catholics believe in both Word and Sacrament, as the means of building up the Body of Christ.  Of course the way in which the Word is often clear, because we learn some new thing to believe or we pick up some advice on how to live a good moral life.  What about sacraments; how do they contribute to building the Kingdom of God?

Sacraments are essentially acted words; sacraments put in action, what the Word of God teaches.  In the Old Testament, the sacraments of the Jewish people were the sacrifices of animals and foodstuffs they offered to God.  The sacraments of Jesus have replaced those sacrifices.  They make present for us in a real way, what words only suggest.

·        Think about baptism.  Of course most of us were infants at baptism, but I am sure you have witnessed the baptism of others.  While we can teach all we want about becoming children of God, until we undergo the ritual of our bodies being washed with water, which represents our souls being washed, it is all abstract and theoretical. 

·        Think about your confirmation, when the bishop laid his hand on you and anointed you and said: “Be sealed with the Holy Spirit;” at that moment, you were branded forever as a child of God and given the task of being his apostle and messenger.

·        Think about when you go to confession, and you name your sins and tell God you are sorry and then the priest pronounces those words: “I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” making God’s mercy really concrete for you.

Conclusion

My friends, on this Ascension Day, let us go home, not feeling like orphans, like Jesus has abandoned us.  Let us not feel like the apostles who, as we heard, remained there standing and looking at the sky for Jesus who had ascended.

Rather let us be assured that he has left us the Sacraments and the Word, as tools for continuing his work and his presence among us.  And as we celebrate the sacraments and hear his Word, let us also remember that perhaps the best way to live out the Sacraments and to proclaim his Word is by our witness and actions.  As St. Francis is reported to have told his followers: “Teach the Gospel always, and when necessary use words.”  And so, as we continue the work of Jesus, let our mantra as Catholics be threefold: Worship, Word and Witness.