Robert Barron - Get to Work
Peace be with you. Friends, we come to the wonderful feast today of the Ascension of the Lord, a very important feast and one that has all sorts of interesting theological and spiritual implications. I want to draw your attention first, it's our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, very beginning of that great text. The risen Christ is gathered with his disciples on the mountain. Listen now: "When they had gathered together they asked him, 'Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?'"
So here they are. They've witnessed the Resurrection. They know this man has been preaching the coming of the kingdom, and so this must be the moment. Jesus answered them, "It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and to all the world".
Now here's the important thing for us. Like the disciples, we very often want to ask the Lord, "Okay, Lord, when is all this going to come to fruition? So we're living in this time of struggle and difficulty, and we're trying to live the moral and spiritual life, and you're telling us that you're going to bring about the kingdom. Is it going to happen? What's it all about? When is all of this going to make sense"? Reasonable enough questions, I suppose. And we hear the same answer: It's not for you to worry about. That's not the question you need to get resolved. That's a matter of God's providence.
So think of all the years of the history of the Church. People in every age would've asked a question like this, and we ask it. And the answer comes back, "That's not for you to worry about". Rather what? The Holy Spirit will come upon you with power, and now go and witness to me around the world. In other words, don't worry about the ultimate resolution of all of this. Rather get to work. In a way, I always think the Ascension is the feast of "get to work," because the Lord moves to a higher dimension and then sends the Holy Spirit, that's next week, Pentecost, we'll celebrate that, sends the Holy Spirit so that we can be empowered to do Christ's work in the world. The ultimate question, when will it all make sense? Don't worry about it. Get to work.
Now, I talked about Jesus moving to a higher dimension. I want to stay with that because I think it helps to illuminate this. Don't think of the Ascension as Jesus moving up through space within our dimensional system. If that were true, even if he's moving at the speed of light, he would be barely out of the solar system. Don't think of it in terms of this dimension. Rather, the Ascension means that Jesus has now been translated into a higher dimension. Now we call it heaven. Heaven's a symbol, the heavens, the sky, and the clouds. That's a symbol for what transcends our ordinary experience.
Now, here's my example. Think of a point, think of one dimension. Now, two dimensions. Think of a line. How many points are in a line? Infinite number of points in a line. The line which is at a higher dimension can include an infinity from that lower dimension. Now, think of lines forming a square in a two-dimensional system. Now raise that to three dimensions. The square becomes a cube. So imagine that. How many squares can fit in that cube? Well, an infinite number. At the higher dimension, it becomes inclusive of what is at the lower dimension. Jesus has ascended into heaven.
And don't think of it as he's staying within our dimensional system. That means like a spaceship going up into space. He's moved to a higher pitch of existence, now listen, which can include even an infinity of what lies at the lower dimension. And so we speak indeed of the Mystical Body of Christ, which includes all of us across space and time. The body of Jesus that made its way around Galilee and Judea in the first century, well that's in a particular time and space. But now the ascended Christ in the heavenly realm at a higher pitch of existence can include, yes, an infinity of us, all of us across space and time, members of his Mystical Body.
You see the point here, friends. To speak of the Ascension of Jesus, therefore, is not to say he gets farther away. On the contrary, the ascended Christ can be closer to us than he ever was when he walked the hills of Galilee. That's why when he appears to Saul who is going to Damascus furiously to persecute the Church, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me"? See, in persecuting the Church, they're members of his Mystical Body, Saul was persecuting Jesus himself. That's how close the ascended Christ is to us. Okay. With that image in mind, I want to look at two further dimensions of this. The first image I want to use is a kind of military one. And let me quote now from the second reading from that wonderful beginning of Paul to the Ephesians.
Get out your Bibles and look in that first chapter of Paul to the Ephesians, this ecstatic hymn to Christ. And we're reading part of it. Listen: "Raising him from the dead," raising Christ from the dead, "and seating him at his right hand in the heavens". Again, don't think like he's beyond the moon somewhere. Think he's in this higher dimensional system. "Far above every principality, authority, power, and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this age but in the one to come. He put all things under his feet".
So this is the image now of the ascended Christ who reigns and commands the way a military leader, certainly in the ancient world, would've gone up to a height from which he could survey the entire field of battle, see the moves of the enemy, see his own army, and give the commands how best to direct it. So the ascended Christ above every principality, authority, power, and dominion, all things under his feet. He's the commanding Lord now of the Church, which participates in him, the Mystical Body which is now being directed by the risen and ascended Christ. Go right back to the beginning now of my sermon. Stop looking up into heaven wondering when he'll come back, but rather get to work. He's going to send the Holy Spirit in power and then he's going to direct you.
Think about this for a second. Think of a foot soldier in Eisenhower's army in 1944 and the Normandy invasion. Now he's making his way across the countryside and his immediate commander tells him, "You've got to take that hill". Well, that's part of this grand strategic plan that Eisenhower has in mind. But this foot soldier, this infantry soldier, doesn't really understand all of that. But he's heard the command, "You've got to take that hill". Well see, we're a bit like that, all of us members of the Mystical Body. Do we see the grand plan? "Hey, Lord, are you going to bring the kingdom to fruition"? "Hey, hey, that's not for you to worry about. You worry about doing what the Spirit commands you to do".
So think now, all those listening to me. We all have a role to play in this great theo-drama. We all have a mission in this great army of Christ. It might be something that never gets the attention of the world. Who cares? It might be something the purpose of which you don't fully understand, but you've been commanded to do it, so do it. Speaking to you as a priest, this comes very naturally. When I put my hands like this into the hands of Joseph Bernardin, who ordained me a priest many years ago, and I said, "I promise obedience to you and your successors," I mean, I didn't know. I barely knew him, knew nothing about his successor, but I did what I was told to do.
Did I understand the grand plan that the cardinal had in mind? No, much less the grand plan that Christ had in mind. But I had a confidence, I still have it, that in obeying that command, I was doing what I was supposed to do. I was making my contribution to the great task. So that's, if you want, the sort of military side of the ascended Christ as he commands his Church. The second part of it is not so much in our readings for today, but you find it in the great Letter to the Hebrews. When you finish reading the beginning of Ephesians, take out your Bible again and read the Letter to the Hebrews.
The author of that letter, we don't know quite who he was. He was certainly someone very well acquainted with the sacrifices and operations of the temple. He knew about the high priest on the Day of Atonement going into the Holy of Holies with the blood of the animal and then putting it around the Holy of Holies, then taking that blood out and then sprinkling it upon the people. In that great act of atonement, he was reconciling divinity and humanity. What the author of that letter sees so beautifully and so clearly is that Jesus on his cross shedding his blood is the true high priest. His blood is the blood of our own reparation because he stands in for us. He becomes sin on the cross, as Paul says. At the same time, his blood poured out is God's blood poured out upon us.
Jesus' cross is the point of reconciliation between divinity and humanity. But now listen, here's where it links to the Ascension. Because Jesus is not just an ordinary human being, because he's God from God, light from light, true God from true God, that act of his on the cross has an eternal dimension. It's not just happening at that one place in time two thousand years ago, but it's been brought up into the heavenly temple where Jesus now eternally presents his sacrifice to the Father. That's the ascended Christ dwelling, as it were, in the heavenly temple. And every time we gather for Mass and we re-present the sacrifice of Jesus, where are we? We are in that same heavenly place. Remember? Participating in him, so doing what he commands, yes, and joining our prayer and sacrifice to his.
That's why at every Mass you should think about the Ascension. Jesus in that heavenly temple, and we join our prayer and sacrifice to his. And this has been true for Christians up and down the ages, because Christ eternally stands outside of time. He can include all of these people across space and time in his great temple sacrifice. So looking up to heaven, "Hey, when's he coming back? Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom? What's it all about? When will all this make sense"? Don't worry about it, don't worry about that. Rather, when the Spirit comes, get to work. Do what you're told. Follow the prompting of the Spirit, even if you don't fully understand what you're doing. And I would say, participate in the great sacrifice of the Mass. In both those ways, we realize the importance of this feast of the Ascension of Jesus. And God bless you.