Sixth Sunday of Easter

Jesus’ “farewell discourse” in Saint John’s Gospel runs through the fourteenth chapter to the seventeenth. Every sentence and phrase and word is rich with meaning. It is good to hear parts of this sermon as we prepare for the feast of the Ascension.

Some people have asked obvious questions that we often find difficult to answer:

• If Jesus has been raised from the dead, where is he?
• If Jesus has been raised from the dead, why didn’t he appear to everyone and clear up the mystery?
• If Jesus has been raised from the dead, why do we still stumble about in the darkness of uncertainty?
• Why doesn’t he end all wars, cure all the sick and raise all the dead? Wouldn’t that demonstrate his authority and end all the confusion?

Jewish and Muslim scholars, suffering beneath the Church’s hegemony during the Middle Ages especially liked to riddle their Christian counterparts with questions like these. Christian theologians lacked the sense of humor that such questions required, and usually responded with contempt and more harassment. 

The Feast of the Ascension invites us to contemplate our relationship with Jesus. Why isn’t he here? Why doesn’t he appear to preside at every Mass, to chair every meeting, to resolve every difficulty? Can we find in his apparent absence cause for greater joy, more confidence, and deeper generosity?

In today’s gospel he challenges us, “If you loved me you would rejoice that I am going to the Father.” Generous parents are happy when their children go off to school or leave home to get married. They're not happy to be relieved of their presence (though that may enter in) but happy because they want only the best for their children. In the same way, we are happy that Jesus has ascended to take his rightful place at God’s right hand. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. No one deserves this honor more than Jesus. In fact, it is an honor infinitely beyond our imagination and we’re astonished that one of our own children should be called from the cross and grave to such a high post.

So we give Jesus to God! He is certainly our most precious gift; he is the guarantor of our salvation, and yet we cannot keep him for ourselves.

Other blessings will follow since we have given him to God. We will know a peace the world cannot comprehend. We will discover the Holy Spirit moving within us, the same spirit that impelled Jesus through his extraordinary life. His Spirit will give us the divine wisdom to see crosses as blessings and humiliation as glory and frustration as success. Most importantly we will find the Trinitarian God – the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – residing in our individual hearts and our collective community.

“Whoever loves me will keep my word,

and my Father will love him,

and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.