The Farewell of the
Ascension
(Ascension
2007)
Acts
1:1-11 Heb
To the church in the diaspora[1]
& to the church of the unchurched[2]
Jesus said to his disciples:
“Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer
and rise from the dead on the third day
and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins,
would be preached in his name
to all the nations, beginning from
You are witnesses of these things.
And behold I am sending the promise of my Father upon you;
but stay in the city
until you are clothed with power from on high.”
Then he led them out as far as
raised his hands, and blessed them.
As he blessed them he parted from them
and was taken up to heaven.
They did him homage
and then returned to
and they were continually in the temple praising God.
Lk 24:46-53
Introduction
Jesus’ farewell
At the Last Supper Jesus
knew that it would be his last night on earth and his last meal with his very
close friends. Scripture says, “He loved those who were close to him, and he
loved them unto the very end” (Jn 13:1). So he rose from the table, girded himself with
a towel and bent down to wash the feet of his disciples. Then he told them that
as he, their Lord and Master, had washed their feet so should they wash each
other’s feet. (Jn 13:1-17). The next day Jesus bade his disciples farewell as he died on the
cross.
On Good Friday we
liturgically symbolize that farewell by stripping the altar clean of candle and
clutter and transferring the Blessed Sacrament to an out-of-sight spot in the
sacristy. The empty tabernacle with its
doors thrown open for the rest of Good Friday cries out, "He's dead and gone," and we feel sad and
empty like the tabernacle itself.
In the Ascension Jesus
finished the farewell begun with his death on the cross. He led the disciples
out of the city as far as Bethany, then raising his hands he blessed them and disappeared
from their sight as he ascended into heaven (Acts 1:3; Lk 24:50-53). In the old
days we liturgically symbolized that also. After the reading of the Ascension gospel, a
server would solemnly snuff out the Easter candle which burned in our midst for
forty days. Then he ceremoniously removed it from sight to some dark closet in
the sacristy for storage until next year. The
candle, which burned every Sunday during the Easter season and which reminded
us of Jesus’ resurrected presence among us, was now gone, and that, too, had
a twinge of sadness about it.[3]
The Ascension is about Jesus’ farewell.
Life is about farewells
All life is about
farewells. We’re always saying goodbye along the journey of life. We say goodbye
to happy friendships which reluctantly end because people must simply go their
separate ways. That’s the goodbye of June graduations. We say goodbye to
friendships which end bitterly and can’t be repaired. We say goodbye to our pet
dogs who think we are God, but whom we must put down because we love them so
much and can’t bear to see them suffer. We say an utterly final and painful goodbye
to our loved ones when we carry them to their graves. Death is the supreme and ultimate farewell in
which all our other farewells mystically participate. Orthodox theologian
Nicholas Baerdeyev says, “All farewells have the taste of death about them.”
The pain of farewells
Farewells are painful for everyone. Jesus’ farewell
was painful for his close friends. He says to them, “Now that I have told you
that I am going to him who sent me, sadness has filled your hearts” (Jn 16:6).
His farewell was also painful for himself. In John’s gospel Jesus spends
chapters 14, 15 and 16
explaining to his close friends why he needs to say goodbye to them.
Last month we said farewell
to a mother who wanted to hold on to life long enough to see her daughter
graduate from high school this June. She
didn’t make it. How painful was that farewell for that dying mother! She is now
freed of her pain. How painful was that farewell for her young daughter and
husband! Their pain will linger on for
years. Last Monday we said farewell to another friend after years of hospice
care at home, and after years of an abiding and ministering presence from an unspeakably
selfless wife. Though she is freed now from seeing her husband suffer and freed
now from her 24 hour hospice vigilance, her pain will linger on for years and
even to the very end.
Farewells are
particularly painful for me. My parents were Italian immigrants who came to
this country at the beginning of the last century. Here in
When the visit was over
and as we were bidding farewell, my father always wept, and I always wept with
him, though I didn't know exactly why we were weeping. Because of that very
early experience, to this very day I don’t fare well with farewells. Throughout
my life, coward that I am, I have managed to escape most of the big goodbyes of
life by quietly slipping out the back door.
Creative though I can be in this matter, there have been a few farewells
I’ve not been able to escape. I couldn’t
escape saying goodbye to my companion of many years, Tina -- the dog who
thought I was God-- when I put her down on a cold cruel day in April.
A recent painful farewell
Just recently my past
caught up to me again. On Friday November 3 of last year I was told that my
services at Old St. Mary’s would be terminated as of November 26, the 34th
and last Sunday of the church year, and that the new church year of Advent 2006
would begin without me. On
Sunday morning, November 5, I headed for Old St. Mary’s for the
But this trip was absolutely momentous and painful for
me. Knowing it would be too emotionally draining for me to hang on till the
first Sunday of Advent to bid farewell to the congregation, I decided quietly
and secretly within myself (unbeknown even to “my disciples”) that this Sunday
Mass would be my very Last Supper at Old St. Mary! With that secret in my head
there was strong emotion in my heart and voice throughout my Last Supper at Old
St. Mary’s that Sunday morning. Yet I managed to get through the
Great joy for the Apostles
If Baerdeyev is right
that all farewells have the taste of
death about them, then how strange was the farewell of the Ascension! Jesus
departs from the disciples in
Why were they filled with
great joy? Because of all the promises he made them. He promised his
disciples that when he ascended to his Father (whose mansion had many rooms) he
would prepare a place there for them and would come back to get them so that
they could be with him forever (Jn 14: 2-4). He promised to send them an
Advocate and Helper to be with them forever (Jn
Great joy also for us
The Westminster
Confession of Faith states that with the same body in which he suffered, Jesus
“ascended into heaven and there sits at the right hand of His Father to make intercession
for us until He comes again.” We, too, are filled with a great joy at his leaving; we now have an
intercessor pleading for us before the Throne of Grace.
The Heidelberg
Catechism states that in Christ’s ascension into heaven “we have our flesh in
heaven as a sure pledge that He, our Head, will also take us, His members, up
to Himself.” We, too, are filled with a
great joy at his leaving; we now
have one of our very own pleading for us his brothers and sister in human flesh
before the Throne of Grace.
A mystic’s take on the Ascension
Again, if Baerdeyev is
right that all farewells have the taste
of death about them, then how strange was the farewell of the Ascension when
the disciples were filled not with
sadness but “with great joy” (Lk 24:25). My mystic friend has a mystical take
on that. In a letter dated
Jesus
departs from the disciples in
“To fill the
world with an Emptiness that heals”-- that, indeed, is a bit of
mysticism.
My friend raises a mystic question: What do we do
with the emptiness which dots the human journey? The culture cries out to us,
“For God’s sake, you fill it up.” You fill the emptiness with fast food. You fill the emptiness with amplifiers to
shatter the sound of silence. You fill the emptiness with cell phones to turn
up the human chatter. You fill the emptiness at shopping malls teeming with
things that cater to your emptiness.
What did the apostles do with the emptiness they
felt when Jesus left them in his Ascension? They didn’t fill it up!
They didn’t head for a fast-food joint or the nearest bar. They didn’t
gulp down happy pills. They didn’t turn up their boomboxes to drown the sound
of silence. They didn’t go looking for a gang to fill their lonely feeling.
Instead they returned to Jerusalem and headed straight for the Temple and remained
there alone in constant prayer, waiting for their emptiness to be filled
with power from on high (Lk 24: 53).
Conclusion
Wait for your fullness
The apostles of the Ascension deliver a mystic message: It’s ok to feel empty. It’s ok to feel lonely every now and then. It's ok to feel depressed and down in the mouth at times. It's ok to feel melancholy for a while. It's ok to wonder sometimes whether life is worth living. It's ok to be lost for a while and not know where you are going. It's ok to have a problem, and for the time being have no solution for it. It’s ok to feel empty.
And the other part of their
mystical message is this: In your emptiness don’t jump at the first thing that
comes your way. Instead go to the
[1] Diaspora is a Greek word
meaning dispersion. Originally it referred to the settling of scattered
colonies of Jews outside
[2] By “the unchurched” is
especially meant not those who have left the church but those whom the church
has left!
[3] Since we are never without
the resurrected presence of Jesus, liturgists later decided that the Easter
candle should not be snuffed out after the gospel reading on Ascension Thursday
and be whisked out of sight. Now it
remains lighted in our midst until Pentecost Sunday—the feast of Jesus’ new
presence with us in his Holy Spirit. Then the candle is moved close to the
baptismal font where it will remain through the year to witness the baptism of
new members into Christ.