Deacon Jim Knipper gives a homily on the Feast of the Ascension. He explains that while traditionally depicted as Jesus rising bodily into heaven, the Ascension actually teaches that Jesus' absence allows believers to experience God's presence through the Holy Spirit. Jesus' departure created a "hole" in the disciples that only God could fill. Absence makes us appreciate presence. The Ascension is not a one-time event but reveals how God meets us in our suffering and doubt to strengthen our faith, hope and love.
1. 1 Deacon Jim Knipper
16 May 2021 Ascension of the Lord Princeton, NJ
This morning we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension. Normally this Feast is celebrated 40
days after Easter which would have been this past Thursday but many Dioceses, like ours,
moves the feast to this Sunday in order that it is easier for the faithful to celebrate and
commemorate the bodily ascension of Jesus into heaven.
And it has been through the centuries that artists have given us so many renderings of this
event, most often, showing the eyes of the crowd looking upward to the sky as Jesus ascends
on a cloud. This imagery reflects the cosmology of the times when these Gospels were written:
a heaven above, an Earth centered on Jerusalem and the underworld below. It was thought
that humans looking up at the blue sky were witnessing the floor of heaven made of blue lapis-
lazuli. So, a departure to heaven could only have been envisioned in terms of being literally
“taken up.”
But if we look at the scripture that addresses the Ascension, it is no surprise that we find several
conflicts. The Gospel of Luke has Jesus ascending the same day he was resurrected. Acts,
written by the same author of Luke, has it taking place 40 days later. The corresponding scene
in Matthew ends with the great commission of sending forth the disciples to baptize all the
nations…but there is no mention of the actual ascension. In the account I just read from Mark,
there is a general consensus among scripture scholars that the last lines, which say Jesus was
“taken up to heaven” were added at a much later date. And then John’s Gospel has Jesus
making three references to an ascension, without giving a specific account of the event. But I
believe John gives us the line that opens up for us the best way to get to the deeper meaning of
the Ascension, when Christ says, “it is good for you that I am going away. For unless I go away
the Spirit cannot come to you.”
In essence Jesus seems to be making a connection between absence and presence. That it is
necessary for absence to take place before we can be opened to presence. But when you think
about it, doesn’t this ring true. After all, how common is it to be blinded in what we have and
who we have in our life? How easy is it for us take for granted people who are in our lives every
day and stop appreciating them? But when they are gone you realize then how much you miss
them and of what they meant to you.
So, absence and presence seem to be terms that are co-related in as much as one needs
absence before one can appreciate presence. Another word for this “suffering”…when we do
not have what we want or who we want in our lives and we feel incomplete...where we long for
re-union, for wholeness, for companionship, to have the one we love back in our arms…in short,
for a peace that the world cannot give.
2. 2 Deacon Jim Knipper
And so it would seem that Jesus needed to leave his disciples – to ascend back to God whereby
the disciples and the world could experience the absence of Christ. Thereby creating a hole in
our lives – one that feels like an emptiness, a yearning, a desire, a longing. And in doing so God
creates this barren space within us that only God can fill. And then, how often does God take us
to the edge of what we feel we can handle, lost in total powerlessness and ready to just give up
only to then for God to be made known to us, always ready to sustain us, to love us, to hold us,
to dwell within us and to feed us…where desolation leads to consolation, where death leads to
resurrection, where doubt leads to knowing, where darkness leads us to light, where ascension
leads to daily presence.
So, where most of us have grown up with the concept of Ascension simply being the historical
time where Jesus hopped onto a cloud and rose up into the sky to take a seat on the right hand
of God…This Feast Day really teaches us so much more about our life and about our loving
God. For the resurrection and ascension of Christ is not a onetime miracle but rather the
revelation of a universal pattern that is so hard for us to see. But Jesus made it clear – he
needed to leave in order that we would feel his absence in order to open our hearts and minds
and souls to the daily presence of the Spirit…to where we can experience a deeper union with
God, and never feel abandoned.
But like many things in life, it is not a matter of absence or presence, rather it is mostly a lifetime
journey of living the paradox of the in between – in the midst of the doubt and tension…living in
the unknowing of this liminal space – but which is the exact space of our lives where faith is
formed, hope is cultivated and love is needed – all focused not so much on what is seen, but
what is unseen… which is the dependence on God and on the graces given to us.
Spiritual writer, Parker Palmer, best sums it up when he writes, “The deeper our faith, the more
doubt we must endure; the deeper our hope, the more prone we are to despair; the deeper our
love, the more pain its loss will bring: these are a few of the paradoxes we must hold as human
beings. If we refuse to hold them in the hope of living without doubt, despair and pain, we also
find ourselves living without hope, faith and love.”
So, my sisters and brothers, while Christian art gives us the images of Jesus ascending on a
cloud to be with his Father, this Feast of the Ascension reminds us that loss and suffering is not
evidence of God’s absence, but rather of God’s presence. That God works through our wounds,
and cracks and blemishes – meeting us where we are broken in order to lift us up so that one
day we will be rejoined to the Christ…in the place where there is only presence…a place filled
with Divine love...and the place that Christ has gone to in order to prepare a place for each and
every one of us.