Trivia question for the weekend: Who was the first human in space? Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin when his capsule Vostok 1 completed one orbit of Earth on April 12, 1961. Yuri returned to earth a hero and a reception was thrown in his honor. As his close friend and cosmonaut colleague Alexei Leonov recounts, then-premier Nikita Khrushchev cornered Gagarin and asked, “So tell me, Yuri, did you see God up there?” After a moment's pause. Gagarin answered, "Yes sir, I did." Khrushchev an atheist frowned and told him, “Don't tell anyone.” A few minutes later the head of the Russian Orthodox Church took Gagarin aside. “So, tell me my child, did you see God up there?” Gagarin hesitated and replied, “No sir, I did not.” and after a slight pause he added, “Don't tell anyone.”
Today’s feast invites us to look up. To have our eyes fixed on heaven. For 6 weeks now we have been reading how Jesus was preparing the disciples for this moment, when he would return to his Father. His appearances were lessons in peace, believing, reconciliation, listening, obedience, love, and hope. All characteristics of one who would be a disciple of Jesus. Today the disciples receive their final instructions. After opening their mind to the Scriptures, Jesus summarizes the core proclamation about him: his suffering, death, and Resurrection that had been foretold in their ancient writings. With these few words, he provides a new way of interpreting the Scriptures in light of Jesus’ passing from death to life.
Throughout the whole period between the resurrection and ascension, God’s providence was at work to instill this one lesson into the hearts of the disciples, to set this one truth before their eyes, that our Lord Jesus Christ, who was truly born, truly suffered and truly died, should be recognized as truly risen from the dead. The disciples are witnesses of these things and this is the message they are to take to all the nations, while living in word and deed, the characteristics Jesus has taught while he was with them. As a parting gift, “I am sending the promise of my Father upon you” telling them to “stay in the city until you are clothed with the power from on high.”
While the Gospel of Luke tells us that after the parting of Jesus, his disciples “went back to Jerusalem full of joy” (Lk 24:52). The same account in the Acts of the Apostles is quite different. The Acts account has the disciples seemingly dazed and confused as they looked intently at the sky. Until two men suddenly appear and disturb their skyward gaze. “Why are you Galileans standing here looking into the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come back in the same way as you have seen him go to heaven” (Acts 1:11).
Looking up to heaven is not to be an escapism from life. If the disciples kept standing there just gazing at the sky, they can’t possibly be “witnesses not only in Jerusalem but throughout Judaea and Samaria, and indeed to earth’s remotest end” (Acts 1:8). The disciples’ belief in the Risen Lord, the power of the Spirit, and their hope in the second coming have to be expressed in their commitment to transforming the world. For this they will need to have their feet firm on the earth.
Disciples of Jesus are charged, within the context of our daily lives, to witness and testify to Jesus in word and deed. It is essential that each one of us, whether rich or poor, young or old, male or female, in all our glorious diversity of gifts to boldly live our faith in the world. To continually call upon the Father’s gift of the Spirit to enliven and encourage us to share our faith story. For it was the presence of God and the power of the Holy Spirit that turned eleven ordinary men of the world, who were intimidated by the catastrophe of the cross, into hearts-on-fire missionaries.
It is the same presence of God and the power of the Holy Spirit that helps us integrate our faith experience into our daily grind. As Christians, we are not to get lost in the narrow confines of this world, nor at the same time, get lost with our heads in the clouds, or looking for God from the window of a space ship. We are called to maintain a sense of an upward and forward-looking hope.
Genuine holiness consists in the meaningful integration of the spiritual and mundane aspects of our daily life. So, look up, setting your heart’s desire on the unperishable treasures from above, while keeping your feet firm on the earth with a forward-looking hope! For by the Holy Spirit we are united to the Risen Christ, who is the head of the Church of which we are the body. We are now the witnesses charged to give testimony to the risen Lord to the world, as we are sent from each Mass in peace, to glorify the Lord, by our lives.
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