Feast of the Ascension

Feast of the Ascension - Year C

Recently I found myself watching very late-night TV with my 20 year-old son. We were just in time to watch the latter part of the mid 1980's remake of Little Shop of Horrors.

I'll admit, that's not a film you'd automatically associate with the Feast of the Ascension, but as the closing credits rolled over the medley, my son asked me what on earth that was and where it had come from.

I explained that this version of the film was based on a theatre musical that had debuted off-Broadway but became a cult hit.

"You mean off-off-Broadway," he joked. And this notion of 'off-off-Broadway' is what comes back to me as I reflect on Jesus' ascension.

The second reading from St Paul tells us that Jesus now sits at the right hand of God in heaven - a place of honour reflecting the unity of the Father and the Son.

The Gospel then tells us that, at his ascension, Jesus promised that the same power that had sustained Him in His ministry would come down upon them, to sustain them in theirs.

The First Reading from the Acts of the Apostles then names this power as the Holy Spirit.

There is a bit of jumping around there but stay with me.

The same Spirit that animated Jesus' public ministry is the Spirit that we receive in baptism, the Spirit that draws forth from us our own lived witness to the Gospel. The Spirit that places Jesus at the right hand of God.

So, are we, if we heed the spirit and faithfully live the Gospel, destined to sit at the right hand of the Son, who is at the right hand of the Father?

The right hand of the right hand. Is this our own off-off-Broadway moment?

I don't think so. The Spirit that unites Jesus with God is the same spirit that we receive in baptism - the Spirit that we receive in fullness through confirmation. And receiving the same Spirit, we too will be united with the God that Jesus calls Father... unless we choose not to be.

At his ascension the disciples were left looking up at the sky, wondering what had just happened. And what would happen next. But Jesus himself had told them. The next chapter in the story of salvation is you; "then you will be my witness."

As we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension this Sunday, I pray that the Spirit that I have received might become more consistently the spirit in which I live my life.

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