A New Way of Being With Jesus

 

Deacon Dave · A New Way of Being With Jesus

Homily for the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, May 17, 2026. Gospel of St. Matthew 28:16-20. Theme: A New Way of Being With Jesus 

 Compared to Easter, the Ascension of Christ into Heaven can seem anti-climatic. What I mean is, we spent 40 days of Lent getting ready for Easter. And then we had a marathon of liturgies throughout Holy Week which led us into the 50-day long Easter Season. So, by the time we arrive at the celebration of the Ascension of the Lord, it can seem almost like an afterthought. But in reality this is far from the truth! However, before getting into why the Ascension is such an important event, let’s first deal with what most people get focused on about it: Jesus shooting up into the sky like a rocket! Many wonder why Jesus didn’t just disappear into thin air after saying His goodbyes instead of staging the dramatic event that we read about in the Gospels. Well, the reason for this is twofold. 

 First, in the 40 days after Easter Christ did indeed appear and disappear before the eyes of his disciples several times. It was what they came to expect from Him. It became a case of “now you see Him, now you don’t”…but always with the assurance that He would return. If Jesus had simply vanished from their sight on that Ascension Day, they would have been expecting to see him again real soon. And so he had to convey to His disciples that this time it was going to be very different. 

 And second, we need to remember that God always deals with people where they are at and according to what they understand or know. And so Jesus needed to express the significance of His Ascension in a way that delivered a definite message to first-century Jewish minds. You see, back then they thought that Heaven (as an actual territorial place) was just above the atmosphere, beyond the sun, moon and stars. They also called God the “cloud-rider” (see Psalms 68 and 104). And so as our first reading informs us, the ascending Lord shot up into the sky and rode a cloud into Heaven. So, in this way they were shown visually and unmistakably that this time His going away would be different and final. It would be the end of the era of life with Jesus on planet Earth and the beginning of a new one with Christ as Lord of Heaven. 

 Ok, so now that we’ve dealt with the symbolic mechanics of the Ascension, let’s go back to why it is such an important event. As I once heard a priest say, “The Ascension takes the training wheels off of Easter and lets us ride the Christian life at full speed.” What he meant was that today’s Solemnity is the icing on the cake of Easter, so to speak, because it takes up where the Resurrection left off and expands its significance for us in three ways. 

 First of all, it enabled Jesus to carry out His mission as the Universal Savior who is available to all people of all time and in every place. When He lived His physical life on Earth, Jesus of Nazareth was very much tied to a particular group of people (the Hebrews) and limited to a very localized section of the planet (the Mediterranean Middle-East). His movements were constrained by time and space as well as by geography and politics within the Roman Empire. However, the Ascension has freed Him from all those restrictions! He no longer belongs to any one country but is King of All Nations. He is no longer simply the Messiah of Israel but is Savior of All Peoples. He is no longer bound to communicate in any one language or owned by any one culture. He can now speak to every human heart and be present in every village, city and nation. His healing embrace now encompasses all the world and every single person in it. 

 Second, the Ascension transforms Christ’s way of being with us from the physical to the spiritual, from the visible to the invisible. In His farewell speech at the Ascension, which we hear in today’s Gospel, Jesus promised that He would remain with us always, even until the end of the world. How so? Well, at the Last Supper He said that He would abide within us through our obedient love for Him. In addition, He promised to give us the Indwelling Holy Spirit as our Bond of Connection with Him. And of course there is His ever-abiding Presence in the Holy Eucharist, which is real but invisible, for what our eyes continue to see is still bread and wine even though the reality of it has changed. These modes of invisible but real presence only became possible once He left the physical realm and re-entered into the heavenly. 

 Thirdly, the Ascension foretells that what happened to Jesus will also happen to us. It assures us that there is a real and eternal life awaiting us beyond the grave. The Ascension shows us that this new life will be one that is experienced in both body and soul, and that where Jesus has gone, we His disciples, will also follow. This is why Jesus said at the Last Supper, “I am going to prepare a place for you, that where I am you also may be.” The Scriptures teach us that being ascended into the glory-life of Heaven is not something reserved for just Christ alone but that it is also our destiny as Christians. St. Paul emphasizes the truth of this teaching often in his many letters. 

 So hopefully, we can see that the Ascension is an important part of the Easter Season and is, in reality, its crowning jewel. It assures us that though the Risen Lord is gone from our sight, He is definitely not gone from our lives. He is more present to us now than He ever could have been before, because He is now able to dwell within us instead of just walking beside us, as He was living on planet Earth. This new form of an intimate personal relationship with Christ is made possible by the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, which is why the Ascension always points us to Pentecost, which we will be celebrating next Sunday. Jesus Himself pointed to Pentecost at the time of His Ascension, telling the disciples to go back to Jerusalem and pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So, let’s follow the Lord’s instructions and spend the coming week in prayer for a renewed outburst of the Holy Spirit within each one of us!