The Ascension—a ten-minute meditation
(Read Acts 1:4-11)
The Ascension of our
Lord represents the ending of the ending and the beginning of the end.
I’ll explain.
The consummation of the
earthly mission of Christ occurred on the cross, at His cry, “My God , My God,
why have you forsaken Me?”, at His death and His final exclamation, “It is
finished!”
But three days later,
Christ arose from the dead!
And so, this great
consummation is continued, protracted, here on the earth, another forty days,
as the Risen Lord appears to His disciples.
But then, finally, the
consummation came to consummation, to its ending, in the Son of God’s return to
His Father in heaven. That’s why I called the Ascension the ending of the ending.
It’s the conclusive, decisive end of the earthly redemptive feat of our Savior.
There will be no repetition. No second round. The disciples won’t be together
again behind locked doors when suddenly the Lord appears among them saying
“Peace be with you.” No. In the Ascension the time has come to say goodbye, in
a certain sense once and for all, to this singular, unique historical
manifestation on earth, in a fallen world, of the Living God in the flesh, the
Risen Lamb of God, Christ Jesus. It’s the ultimate conclusion of that earthly
mission that began in Bethlehem, was achieved on the cross and was then affirmed
in glory and majesty by His Resurrection.
Yet here too at His
Ascension we are, as it were, not simply turning a page, the last page of this chapter,
but actually shutting the book itself, closing the covers of the book—the
“book” of this unrepeatable stage.
That’s what I meant by
the words “the ending of the ending.” Christ will return, but not to live out
again what’s already been accomplished by Him. That stage is passed, but its
fruit, the grace, the spiritual treasure of eternal life, the victory and
majesty of that stage are accessible to us all through repentance by faith.
That door stays open until the Heavenly Father closes it. He will, at some time
not revealed to us, close the door and say, “The time has come.” Then, as the
angels said to the apostles, “This Jesus taken from you up to heaven will come
in the same way as you have seen him ascending to heaven.”
But as the apostle says in
the epistle to the Hebrews, Christ will come the second time “not for the
purging of sins but for those awaiting Him for salvation.”
That’s what I meant by
saying that the Ascension of the Lord is also the “beginning of the end,” since from that great moment of the return
of the Risen Son to the Father we find ourselves in perpetual expectation of
His return to us. From the day of the
Ascension the whole world, including believers and non-believers, is located in
the end times, the last days, in the ultimate, climactic stage of history,
believers with a passionate sense of expectation, non-believers with an
indefinite, vague unease.
Catholics, in their
liturgy, repeat this succinct confession of faith: “Christ has died, Christ has
risen, Christ is coming again.” These three phrases encapsulate the whole
meaning and prospect of our existence. In Him we more than exist, we have the
life of the Spirit and His Kingdom, and we exult in anticipation of the coming
day.
So the “end of that ending” has been achieved, and now what
has been launched is the beginning of “the end of the age,” and we in this last
age await the Beginning of all beginnings, at the appearing of Christ’s glory,
and of that beginning there will never be an end: “Behold, I am making
everything new!”
