Solemnity of the Ascension
June 01, 2025 – 10:30 AM
Saint Cecilia Catholic Community
Rev. David Justin Lynch
Acts 1:1-11 | Psalm 47:2-3;6-9
Ephesians 1:17-12 | Luke 24:46-53
+In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
On May Sixteenth of this year, Deacon Charles Burns departed from earthly life. Deacon Charley was a founding member of Saint Cecilia Catholic Community and was our first Parish Deacon before Sharon was ordained in April, twenty-eighteen.
I miss Deacon Charley. So much so, that last Sunday, when we heard the solo from Handel’s Messiah, “The Trumpet Shall Sound,” sounding so loud and so clear that I expected Deacon Charley to come walking in the door!
But that didn’t happen. Deacon Charley, as good a Deacon as he was, did not rise from the grave and ascend to Heaven like Jesus did. He died in a hospital.
That tells us that there is something different about Jesus from the rest of us. The short answer is that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, not only fully human, but simultaneously, fully God, as declared by the Council of Chalcedon in four-fifty-one A-D. But how is the Ascension of Jesus that we celebrate today essential for us in the twenty-first century?
Today’s celebration is NOT the commemoration of a physical historical event whereby Jesus flew up into the clouds. Instead, the Ascension is a metaphor. The readings for the Ascension from Acts and Luke show us a window into the moment of the Ascension. Jesus is taken up before the disciples’ eyes, where a cloud, a symbol of God’s presence, receives him. He does not float away as a ghost; rather, He ascends in His glorified body, carrying our humanity into heaven.
In metaphorical terms, the Ascension speaks to the spiritual, communal, and cosmic meaning of Jesus’ departure from the earth. In the metaphorical sense, the Ascension proclaims that Jesus has completed His earthly mission and is now exalted to a place of divine authority. He who was once humiliated on the cross is now glorified as Lord and Messiah.
The Ascension bridges the gap between heaven and earth. It is crucified love, not imperial domination, that is enthroned above all. It challenges earthly power structures and redefines glory as sacrificial love.
For his disciples, and for us, the Ascension is a transition from the physical presence of Jesus to his spiritual presence. Jesus leaves the disciples, not to abandon them, but to be present with them in a new way, through the Holy Spirit. The disciples moved from depending on the external presence of Jesus to internalizing Jesus in their lives. Like a teacher stepping back so that the student can grow, the Ascension symbolizes empowerment. In the same way, Jesus entrusts His mission to all of us as he gives us the Holy Spirit to guide and motivate us.
The Ascension is not just a divine exclamation point at the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry; it is a promise and a pathway. In the Ascension, we see our own destiny foreshadowed: to be lifted up into full communion with God, fully alive in the life of the Trinity.
Jesus ascended in His human body, symbolizing that humanity has a place in the divine life. The Ascension shows us how humanity is raised into divine communion with God. It is not upward movement into space, but an upward movement into being. Jesus lifts our human nature into union with God. As Gregory of Nazianzus said, “What is not assumed is not healed”—and what is lifted up is healed and glorified.”
The Ascension is no symbolic departure. Jesus, still bearing the marks of His crucifixion, enthrones human nature at the right hand of God. As the early church scholar Tertullian put it, “the flesh is the hinge of salvation.” It is this flesh, our flesh, that is now glorified in God. By ascending bodily, Jesus declares that you are not abandoned. In the Ascension, the Incarnation is not undone. Jesus is still Emmanuel—God with us—even as He reigns in heaven. His humanity is permanent, and so is His union with us.
Today’s Psalm portrays the glory of the ascended Jesus, emphasizing Jesus as a co-equal person of the Trinity. Simply put, Jesus is God. As we sang this morning, “God mounts his throne amid shouts of joy; sing praise to God, sing praise; sing praise to our king, sing praise.” But notice what kind of king the glorified Jesus is. “For He is king of all the earth; sing hymns of praise. God reigns over all the nations.” Jesus is so different from earthly rulers who exercise their power over a defined geographic area or group of people for a finite time! And because God alone is king of the entire Universe, all human kings who seek to dominate the world will ultimately fail in their quest to do so.
In today’s reading from Ephesians, the author prays that we might have “the eyes of our hearts enlightened” to know “the hope to which God has called you.” What is that hope? That hope is that we would be caught up in the very life of Jesus. It is a hope that we experience the same power that raised Jesus from the dead, the same power now given to Jesus above all things. As our reading says, “He has made Him head over all things for the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”
Classic Western Eschatology has humans at the end of their earthly lives facing a stern judgmental God who will supposedly consign them to Heaven or Hell based on how they lived. But that isn’t the only view among Christians. I don’t agree with everything the Eastern Church teaches, for example, they refuse to ordain women to the Priesthood, but their eschatology is spot-on. It is based on a concept called “theosis.”
So what is theosis? It is not that we become God by nature, but that we are drawn into God’s life by grace. The Ascension reveals this destiny. As explained in the Gospel of John, Jesus returned to his Father not to abandon us but to prepare a place for us. He announced that us the Holy Spirit will conform us to God’s image. And Jesus promises that where He is, we shall be also.
For us, theosis is not a future-only happening. As Gregory Palamas teaches, the light of the Transfiguration and the glory of the Ascension can shine in our hearts through prayer, sacraments, and holiness of life. To be a Christian is to be on a path of theosis, wherein on this journey we become by grace what Jesus is by nature, that is, radiant with love, alive in truth, and one with God, yet fully ourselves.
Like Jesus, our ultimate destiny is to be with God and become part of God. This is the language of participation, of mystical union. Christ is not just above us, but within us. The Ascension does not separate us from God—it is our glorification begun in Him. As Maximus the Confessor wrote, in Christ, “God and man are united without confusion, and the human being is deified while remaining fully human.”
Theosis is not an automatic process, but a journey of cooperation with the Holy Spirit. While the death and resurrection of Jesus have achieved victory over sin and death, each of us must actively participate through the Holy Spirit to experience this salvation. Next Sunday is the Feast of Pentecost, when we will celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit into our lives to be our advocate and companion on our journey.
Deacon Charley’s earthly existence is no more. Deacon Charley came from God, served God on earth, and is now with God. Human lives are a journey from God to God. Deacon Charley is still alive, but in a different way. He is alive as part of God, as all those who have left us are. What Deacon Charley left behind was his love for his friends, for his family, for the Church, and for God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As the First Epistle of John tells us, God is love. The more we aspire to be like God, the more we love, and the closer we are to God. AMEN.