Solemnity of the
Ascension of the Lord
Cycle B
May 17, 2015 7:30 and 9:00am
Saint Margaret
Parish, Bel Air
A Funeral
This past Monday, I had a
funeral.
The man who died was a good
person. His family is a good family.
At this and at most funerals, the
family and close friends are grieving. Maybe
they are in shock, maybe even traumatized at the loss they have
experienced.
At these moments, we are, as I like
to put it, stopped in our tracks. Life
has stopped, at least for a while.
The Apostles: Looking Up
Those experiences help us to
appreciate the apostles in today’s first reading.
They are just standing there,
looking up at the skies. Jesus has died
and, yes, they have experienced him risen and alive after his death.
But now, he is taken away from
them again in the event that we call the Ascension. For them, all of this has happened so quickly.
And so, like us at a funeral,
they are grieving, maybe in shock, maybe traumatized. They are just stopped in their tracks.
Life has stopped, at least for a
while. They are just standing there and
staring into the heavens.
Thinking of Resurrection
When we have these
experiences, we are also looking up to the heavens and wondering.
The Scripture tells us
that Jesus rose from the dead and promises the same thing for us. We believe and want to trust that this is so.
But we wonder what it
will be like. And here I think about light.
Several people who were
very close to death, or were even thought to be dead, have told me that they
saw a bright light. They experienced
themselves entering or being drawn into this light.
I know that there are
some books recounting similar experiences.
I have to think how consistent this is with how the Scripture speaks of
Jesus and the Father.
Saint John describes
Jesus as the light that no darkness can overpower. In our Creed, we state our belief in him as “God
from God and light from light.”
So, when we just stand
and look up to the heavens at the death of a loved one, maybe we can recall
this. It may strengthen our faith and our
hope.
“Why are you standing…and looking?”
In today’s first reading, we also hear that “two men dressed in white
garments” ask the apostles, “Why are you standing there, looking up at the sky?”
These two messengers are gently confronting the
apostles. They are trying to move them
back to everyday life.
Eventually, little by little, sooner or later, we know that
we have to do the same thing after the death of a loved one. And when we do this, Jesus in today’s gospel
gives us some direction for living.
He uses some metaphors that we must understand carefully and
not take literally. Let’s look at just
two of them.
Now Live on and Do This
Jesus says that we are to “speak new languages.” This will probably not be speaking in the tongues
of charismatics or learning a language we didn’t know.
Instead, this will be a speaking of empathy and wisdom simply
by our actions. We will speak this new
language because of the profound experience of loss we have had and the looking
up to the skies we have done.
And then Jesus says that we “will lay hands on the sick and they will recover.” Sadly, we know that this does not always
physically happen.
But we can be the agents for the inner peace that the risen
Christ offers. We can be the instruments
for the spiritual healing that gets us through the emotional, mental and
physical illnesses of life.
Conclusion
So, the apostles’ experience after Jesus’ death reflects our
own experience at the death of a loved one.
It leads us to look up to the heavens and reflect on the
light and life that Jesus promises. And
it leads us to look back to daily life and live it, maybe differently, in the
way that Jesus charts.
