I Am With You Always (Ascension Sunday A)

Little Tonton was spending the weekend with his grandmother after a particularly trying week in kindergarten. His grandmother decided to take him to the park on Saturday morning. The weather was good and everything was beautiful.

His grandmother remarked, "Doesn't it look like an artist painted this scenery? Did you know God painted this just for you?"

Tonton said, "Yes, God did it and he did it left handed."

This confused his grandmother a bit, and she asked him, "What makes you say God did this with his left hand?"

"Well," said Tonton, "we learned at Sunday School last week that Jesus sits on God's right hand!"

Today is the Solemnity of the Lord’s Ascension.Indeed, we always profess that Jesus “ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.”

The gospel of Matthew, particularly today's reading (Mt. 28: 16-20), does not give an account of Jesus’ departure. What he does assert is that Jesus has been given “all power in heaven and on earth” (v. 18). Second, Jesus shares this authority to his disciples by commissioning them to make disciples of all nations through baptism; and third, Jesus assures his disciples of his presence at all times and until the end (v. 19-20).

Jesus' Victory. In the light of Matthew’s account, our belief in the ascension of our Lord is not so much about the “how” of this event as it is about the fact that the risen Jesus has now returned to the very life of God and hence, shares the omnipotence of the Father. This assures us that our humanity, in the person of Jesus, the God-Man, has now fulfilled its destiny, that is, to share in the very life of God. In Jesus, the human being has now been incorporated into the being of God. The ascension event is, therefore, the ultimate victory of Jesus, demolishing the distance wrought by sin between God and the human.

Jesus’ victory is ours too. We can now look forward to the day that we shall live in the very heart of God’s being... in perfect intimacy... forever and ever.

Our Mission. While looking forward to that day of salvation, we are commissioned by the Lord to make disciples of all nations. There is just so much good news here that we ought to announce. The Lord wants us to share this good news to all peoples by making them his disciples. We are to be his witnesses to the ends of the world. We are to invite people to participate in the victory that is stored for us by the Lord. Hence, the ascension event is not just about Jesus’ departure; more importantly on our part, it signals the passing on unto us of his mission of proclaiming God’s love to the world. In other words, we are sent to let people know that, in Jesus, the unifying love of God has triumphed over the alienating effect of sin; in Jesus, the human being is now reconciled with the loving God.

Let us then continue to tell the world of God’s love... even if it continues to reject God’s invitation.

The Lord's Intimate Presence. Again, the Ascension of our Lord is not really about his departure. On the contrary, it is the assurance that the risen Jesus is ever more present in us in the most intimate way. “I am with you always” (v. 20). The Ascension is not a moment of feeling orphaned. Our belief in this event instructs us not to keep on looking at the sky as if to hope for a last glance of the disappearing Lord; instead, it makes us train our senses into experiencing the intimate indwelling of God in us here and now.

Celebrating the solemnity of the Ascension of our Lord is an invitation for all of us, his disciples, to be ever more sensitive to the presence of God in every moment of our lives.

Lord, I thank you for assuring me that you’re with me always. Let my life be a proclamation of your love to those who feel empty, alone, and unloved.