Today’s readings: Acts 1, 1-11; Ephesians 1, 17-23; Luke 24, 46-53.
The ascension of our Lord points to the hope his call holds for us and to the rich glories he has promised. Till this is verified, we have to journey a long way and clouds of all kind will take him from our sight. If it was in Jerusalem that the Apostles suffered the shattering of their hopes with the death of Jesus, it is now going back to Jerusalem that they were to experience fullness of joy in true worship.
The Scriptures today confirm that there is continuity between our “staying in the city” and our “being clothed with the power from on high”. It is the Spirit who makes this connection possible. We can only ask questions, look up to heaven, be deeply concerned and at times even exasperated for hopes that never materialise. Indeed, roaming about in our cities today we are more driven to lose hope and to perceive God’s power as highly far-fetched.
Yet it is not by retreating from our cities and creating our comfort zones that we can experience new life in Jesus. The recurring question at the time of Jesus on the part of many, including his close disciples, was about the time for the restoration of the kingdom of Israel. This has also been a recurring concern throughout the time of the Church since its inception.
The Church, as any other institution, has had its times of rise and decline, brightness and darkness. And these ups and downs undoubtedly left their impact on how God’s kingdom was envisaged in time.
Geza Vermes, one of the world’s greatest experts on early Christianity, in his book Christian Beginnings, sketches the historical continuity between Jesus portrayed in his Galilean charismatic setting and the solemn proclamation of his divinity which came much later. But, he affirms, “the principal task the prophet from Nazareth set in front of his Galilean followers was the pursuit of the kingdom of God in the immediacy of the here and now”. By the early fourth century, all that was transformed into an intellectual religion defined and regulated by dogma.
Even today, we are pressured by immediacy and urgency, because many are simply concerned with the here and now. Perhaps our call today is to go back to the original charisma, to the unfolding of the great adventure of the proper Christian beginnings that were meant to mark the spiritual history of mankind. We need to recover passion where faith and belief are concerned, rather than remaining imprisoned in old-style theologies and anachronistic language and liturgies.
It took time for the Church in its early stages to come to the full picture. It will take time for each and every one of us to consolidate our experience as believers. It is the reason for believing, not for unbelief, that mostly weighs on our testimonies. From a human standpoint, it is understandable that very often we are impatient with time and with ourselves. The Apostles were impatient. Great reformers and revolutionaries were impatient.
The Christian religion has a long history. Yet, in the realm of the Spirit, there is still a long way to go to grasp what has been revealed to us and to come to a less shadowy knowledge of God’s mystery as it unfolds in our daily living. The idea that everything and everyone will one day be restored in Christ has constantly resurfaced in Christian thought and has provoked controversy and condemnations.
From Origen in the second century to the Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin in the 20th century, so much has been affirmed and denied as to how things will end up in view of Christ’s redemption and in view of God’s universal will to save everyone.
As many of us remain troubled with big issues concerning the other side of the coin of our humanity, today’s feast gives the reassurance that the disintegration we go through personally and which marks the evolving world we live in, will give way to transformation.