Archbishop of Sydney

Feast of the Ascension of the Lord

Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney
Acts 1:1-11; Eph 1:17-23; Lk 24:46-53

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
23 May 2004

We celebrate today the feast of the Ascension, the solemn close of Our Lord’s post–resurrection appearances.  It is a departure recalled in Acts and Luke, as we heard this morning, and also in Mark.  There are references in John and a number of other references, explicit and implicit throughout the New Testament.

The feast has been celebrated throughout the Church since at least the fourth century, and belief in the Ascension is one element of the creeds.

To my limited knowledge the Ascension has not caused discussion among our demythologizing Scripture scholars, who of course felt that they have bigger fish to follow.  Nearly everyone is quite happy to believe that Jesus has left us, and many were more concerned whether he ever returned, and if he did so, under what conditions.

Some claim to be scandalised by elements of the Ascension story.  I think it is the idea that Jesus disappeared upwards, or that Heaven was up in the sky; somehow seeming to suggest that it would have been better for Our Lord to disappear horizontally like a long distance runner, or a water skier!

These disputes on the time, the location and the nature of the exit can be left to learned men and women.  It is the traditional belief that Jesus ascended from the Mount of Olives, Gethsemane, in Jerusalem 40 days after the resurrection, as we heard in the passage from the Acts.

We also believe that Christ rose from the dead with his human nature.  A belief in the immortality of the soul of Christ is not what the New Testament describes, or the Church teaches.  We are not celebrating the final appearance of a ghost or a well mannered poltergeist.

These claims do not have simply academic consequences, because as the author of Ephesians tells us, Christ, in going “above and beyond the Heavens”, to the right hand of the Father, “fills the universe with his presence.”

Christ is the Lord, not first of the interior world of the spirit, but of the whole world of history and material creation.

It is blasphemous to reduce Christ to a lean, fit do-gooder, whom we would be happy to meet, and with whom we would be delighted to have a “cuppa”.  The Christ we shall meet is the Christ of the crucifixion, resurrection and Ascension, as well as the Christ who greeted the children, and forgave the sinners.

Scientists tell us that the known extent of the universe is at least thirteen and a half, perhaps eighteen billion light years.  These estimates have roughly doubled in 25 years.  Our planet in this universe is smaller than a grain of sand on the beach.  The time since the world began is variously estimated, except that the life span of any human is like an atom in this expanse.

To emphasise that we are not talking about the Ascension as a physical event it is useful to recall that the Milky Way is 100,000 light years across.  Light travels at 300,000 kilometres a second; or 186,000 miles a second in the old measurement, (My instincts generally are still pre-metric!).

Our solar system, which is 1/800 of a light year wide, belongs in one spiral branch of the Milky Way called the Orion Arm.  If Our Lord was travelling at the speed of light he would still have many thousands of years of travel to pass beyond the nearest extremity of the Milky Way, our home galaxy.  The ancient psalmist did not have this information when he wrote “I look up at your heavens, shaped by your fingers, at the moon and the stars you set firm – what are human-beings that you spare a thought for them?”

We can now better understand why the psalmist felt that surge of awe and reverence before the immensity of creation, that instinct to worship.

The Ascension begins the reign of God, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains.  It not only finalises the post-resurrection apparitions, but sets the stage for the final return of Christ the King and Judge at the end of time.

As a person living on earth who was truly human, the Son of God with a human nature, Jesus was generally limited to being in one spot at any one time.  When he departed, he did not say goodbye, but promised to be with His church until the end of time.

He promised to do this by sending the Holy Spirit of God, whom we worship as the third person of the Holy Trinity.  In other words the Ascension is the prelude to Pentecost Sunday, when we celebrate the presence of God among us as a Spirit, not limited by any human nature, present among us especially whenever we gather in Christ’s name.  Or in fact, whenever there is genuine love and faith in a human heart.

We have to walk in the obscurity of faith, which means misunderstandings more often than ill will.  Just before the Ascension the apostles were still asking Jesus whether he was going to restore the Kingdom of Israel!  We can be like that too, even if our misunderstandings are different.

We are called to accept the out-pouring of the Holy Spirit, believers in God’s forgiveness of sin through genuine repentance, and witness to the reality of God’s love and Christ’s message – to the ends of the earth.  These were Jesus’ final instructions.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.