It's a holiday weekend—a time many people enjoy the outdoors, even with some rain. You may have heard about two college students who went hiking and suddenly encountered a bear. One quickly put his running shoes on. The other said, “You don’t think you’re going to outrun a bear?” The first replied, “I don't have to; I only have to outrun you!” Quick thinking!
This Memorial Day weekend, we honor again the men and women who died in the wars of our country. The total number slain is staggering: some 1.2 million killed during America’s eleven major conflicts.
I invite all of us to pause to pray for these brave men and women who gave the last full measure of devotion, per Lincoln's Gettysburg address, to the cause of our freedoms: Freedom of speech, freedom to worship God, freedom from want, freedom from fear. Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord. Let perpetual light shine upon them.
We celebrate the one Easter Mystery under different aspects. The Ascension that we celebrate today is Jesus’s final leave-taking from the disciples so something awesome can happen: the descent of the Spirit on Pentecost.
The Ascension connects the Gospel of Luke and the book of the Acts. The Gospel signals the close of Jesus’s earthly ministry, and Acts heralds the beginning of the Church's ministry, yours and mine, proclaiming that Jesus Christ is gloriously alive among us, active through the power of the Spirit. Because He lives, we live forever.
Paul in his letter to the community at Ephesus prays that we will grow in wisdom and enlightenment so that we will engage more eagerly in Jesus's saving ministry. Jesus, Paul writes, is indeed the head of the church, the mystical Body of Christ, the community of disciples, called to herald the good news and serve our fellow human beings.
In the Gospel, Jesus tells the disciples, who are eyewitnesses to his death and resurrection, that He will send the promise of God, the Spirit, to them so that they and future disciples can continue the ministry of Jesus until he comes again at the end-time to transform this universe into a new, indescribable reality. And then Jesus is taken up into heaven; and the joyful disciples are filled with hope.
That’s my theme for today: hope, a confident anticipation of something yet to come
History is filled with people who have kept hope alive. One of my favorites is Helen Keller, writer, lecturer, and inspiration to many. Helen overcame physical obstacles that most of us can’t imagine. Here is a thought of hers that reminds me of the Easter mystery and the hopes of the disciples. Helen Keller wrote,
“When one door of happiness closes, another opens but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”
Hope points to the future. Sometimes, we may not like what is unfolding before us. And so, how react?
There is only one Christian response to the future: hope. We are forever seeking to reach beyond ourselves for that which is to come, to go beyond the here and now.
For many philosophers, hope expresses what human existence is all about. Images of hope weave in and out of the bible. Initially, the hopes of the ancient Hebrews were concrete: land, offspring, peace and prosperity. When their hopes were dashed with the fall of the Southern Kingdom in the sixth century BC, God began to build new and better hopes for them—a Messianic era, a Messiah.
The New Testament is rooted and grounded in Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus is our hope. At the very core of Christianity is the central reality that Jesus appeared alive to the disciples after his death. The tomb was empty. He suddenly and unexpectedly appeared and then disappeared, in Jerusalem and Galilee.
This risen Christ anticipates God’s future for all of us. By virtue of the life-giving waters of baptism, we begin now to experience that future—life in relationship with God forever.
Christian hope is the conviction that the universe in which we live has an ultimate purpose, that Jesus Christ in his Second Coming will bring to completion the process of transformation inaugurated in his resurrection.
This hope challenges us to do everything we can now to usher in that future: always to be in relationship with God and in relationship with one another as compassionate, generous, forgiving and fair human beings. Above all, this hope challenges us to reach out with a helping hand to that which alone is of everlasting value—the human person, the image of God, no matter how unkempt the appearance. In the end, all hope will be realized when the risen Christ, by the power of the Spirit, hands over the universe, transformed at the end of time, to his heavenly Father.
May God fill us with hope in our future, this Ascension Day, and every day of our lives.
