The Ascension of the Lord - Year B

Acts 1:1-11; Ephesians 4:1-13; Mark 16:15-20

And so we arrive at that day when the Lord ascends into heaven leaving his bewildered disciples gazing skywards. It’s a great image, really. Actually, it’s what we all should be doing as we travel the highways and byways of our life – always  gazing skywards. If we do this, and I’m sure most of you do, we are really keeping our eyes on our destination, making sure we don’t forget what the journey of life is all about.

But there’s another aspect to this gazing skywards which we find articulated in many places throughout Scripture. The two angels ask: Men of Galilee, why gaze in wonder at the heavens? And Psalm 123 answers:

To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
…so our eyes look to the Lord our God, till he has mercy upon us.

Of course, we look to the Lord not only for mercy but for hope and joy and strength, indeed, for every good thing, including the day when he returns to us in his final great coming. That will be the day we really ‘cop an eyeful’, so to speak. That will be the awesome day when the reward of our gazing heavenwards will be given us in its fullness because: This Jesus whom you saw ascending into heaven will return as you saw him go, alleluia.

But in the meantime, like the disciples, we must continue our earthly journey and fortunately, as Luke tells us in Acts, Jesus gave them some specific instructions which apply also to us. Indeed, they are meant for every Christian.

To begin with he promises the gift of the Holy Spirit – the Holy Spirit who unites the Father and the Son in their unbreakable bond of love. He promises that this same Holy Spirit will be given to the disciples. And, of course, there is no need for me to remind you that this is the gift we received at our Baptism and especially at our Confirmation. It’s the gift that make all the difference – an unchangeable difference which we shall celebrate next Sunday, the feast of Pentecost.

So what is this unchangeable difference? Luke says: you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and then you will be my witnesses…! There you have it, the gift of the Holy Spirit makes the disciples into witnesses to the Gospel of Jesus. They are no longer mere bystanders – they have become evangelisers – sent to make disciples of all the nations.

Filled with the Holy Spirit of God they now have a mission: Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News to all creation. In other words, ‘Go out and evangelise the world – the culture, the morals, the legislature, the economy, the education system, the media, the political system. Bring everything into alignment, into obedience to the Gospel.’

If we were to find the briefest, neatest, punchiest way to translate this into language meaningful to us here today we might say: Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord. Sound familiar?