Jesus’ Mission Comes Full Circle

Today, we recall when Jesus was taken to heaven and forever seated at his Father’s right hand. This commemoration is important because it completes what was started with the Incarnation of the Word in the womb of the Blessed Virgin. The Ascension comes full circle of Jesus’ mission and his promises to his people of eternal life with the Trinity.

The first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles recalls the moment Jesus left their sight. Before this, however, the Acts ensure the reader is reacquainted with the events happening before his departure. The Apostles recalled the eyewitness accounts of the risen Lord’s body and how they saw for themselves the marks of his suffering, namely the holes in his hands and feet and the gash in his side caused by his brutal crucifixion. “Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it in my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.’”

The same Jesus they knew before he died proved to Thomas and his other skeptical followers he was truly before them on various occasions following his Resurrection. After these encounters and forty days after his rising, Jesus was taken from their sight. Acts of the Apostles memorialize this event by stating that when Jesus left their sight, two men dressed in white said, “This Jesus who has been taken up from you to heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.”

His mission of saving the world was completed when Jesus was taken from the Apostles’ sight and ascended into heaven. The Holy Spirit infused them with life and grace on Pentecost, handing over the Church to them. The monumental event of Jesus being with his Father is the end of his mission on earth and the complete transformation of the human condition.

Remarkably, humanity’s transformation includes the end of sin and death, the resurrection into eternity, and the bodily resurrection. Jesus, who assumed a human body through the Blessed Virgin, now having broken the bonds of death, has a glorified body that is welcome in heaven. Before this, no human body resided in heaven.  Jesus’ Ascension confirms that the transformation from sin to holiness includes the body. With God’s grace and welcomed into heaven, our glorified bodies will accompany us. We will be eternal beings with a body and soul without the potential of corruption or the division between the two, which we often experience now.

So far, we have focused on the objective nature of Jesus’ Ascension, and now turn to the subjective. Thanks to the reflections of St. Leo the Great, Pope, the subjective nature of Jesus’ Ascension is fertile ground for our reflections. St. Leo surmises that God’s providence helped strengthen the Apostles’ faith between the Resurrection and the Ascension by showing them the Lord truly suffered, died, and was subsequently recognized through his glorified body.  

St. Leo further concludes that when Jesus ascended into heaven, there was no longer any doubt about Jesus’ divinity. He was the one who descended from heaven and went back to the Father who had previously sent him. With the certainty of Christ’s divinity, the disciples began seeing things in a new light. As the Father was invisible to them, and yet there was no doubt he existed, Christ shared the same divinity and, without confirmation from their human eyes, now is as accurate and honest as the Father in heaven they worshipped and adored.

The faith we all share is the ability to believe in Christ as God without physical confirmation. Just as Jesus rebuked Thomas for his unbelief, He blessed those who had not seen and felt.  Believing without empirical evidence is what matures one’s faith. Without the physical as a crutch for belief, the discipleship is now summoned to heights beyond this world.

It was a great privilege for the Apostles to work with Jesus, experience his glorified body, and later realize their faith was called to something much greater than the senses could provide. We share that privilege of faith, follow the Apostles’ lead to look beyond the world to eternity, and believe our souls will be reunited with our glorified bodies.