Jul 12 Sat
Is a Christian ever alone?
“You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8). And the sacred Author adds that “as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.” This is the mystery of the Ascension. But what do the Bible and the Liturgy wish to tell us by saying that Jesus “was lifted up”?
The verb “to lift up” was used in the Old Testament and refers to royal enthronement. Thus, Christ’s Ascension means, in the first place, the enthronement of the Crucified and Risen Son of Man, the manifestation of God’s kingship over the world.
However, there is an even deeper meaning that is not immediately perceptible. It is said first that Jesus was “lifted up” and then it says, “taken up.” The event is not described as a journey upward but rather as God introducing Jesus into the space of the Divine.
To present the Lord wrapped in clouds calls to mind the same mystery of the phrase, “seated at the right hand of God.” If Christ ascended into Heaven, the human being has entered into intimacy with God in a new and unheard-of way; man, henceforth, finds room in God forever.
The word “Heaven” does not indicate a place above the stars but something far more daring and sublime: it indicates Christ himself, the divine Person who welcomes humanity fully and forever, the One in whom God and man are inseparably united forever. Man’s being in God, this is Heaven.
And we enter Heaven to the extent that we draw close to Jesus in communion with him. Thus, the crucified and Risen Jesus becomes invisibly present in the life of each one of us.
After the Ascension, the disciples returned to Jerusalem “with great joy.” They were happy because it was not a separation; on the contrary, they were then certain that the Crucified-Risen One was alive and that, in Him, God’s gates, the gates of eternal life, had been opened to humanity forever.
The Lord’s Ascension was not a temporary absence from the world but rather the new and definitive form of his presence. It was to be up to them and now to us, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to make his presence visible by our witness, preaching, and apostolic zeal.
Like them, we, too, with serenity and enthusiasm, accept the invitation to go everywhere and proclaim the saving message of Christ’s death and Resurrection.
He accompanies and comforts us: “Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.” The Church does not carry out the role of preparing for the return of an “absent” Jesus, but, on the contrary, lives and works to proclaim his “glorious presence” now.
Excerpts from Pope Benedict XVI