[1]A young couple moves into a new
neighborhood. The next morning while they are eating breakfast, the young woman
sees her neighbor hanging the wash outside. “That laundry is
not very clean,” she said. “She doesn’t know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap.” Her husband looked on, but remained
silent. Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, the young woman
would make the same comments.
About one month
later, the woman was surprised to see nice clean wash on the line and said to
her husband: “Look, she has learned how to wash
correctly. I wonder who taught her this.”
The husband said, “I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows.”
The people who came
into contact with Jesus never quite understood what he was really all about.
During his public life the crowds hardly had a clue, and even his closest
followers were constantly misreading him and viewing him through a worldly, distorted, unclean window. Here he was, forty days after his resurrection, returned to life, triumphant, and ready to
return to his Father, yet, they still didn’t get it. Just before he ascends
into heaven, his disciples ask him, “Are you at this time
going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6) They couldn’t grasp when Jesus spoke of the kingdom of heaven. He
was speaking of a grander vision God had in mind for his people.
The truth is, the
people of Jesus’ time are not the only ones who are having trouble seeing
clearly what Jesus means by the kingdom. Many people today, understand the
kingdom only as another world far beyond this one, to be enjoyed when this life
is over. But Jesus was talking of a world where God would reign, where men and
women would do his will—where hatred, greed, and violence would give way to justice, peace, and love. This is not an impossible dream! It is something that
happens little by little, every time you and I break out of the prison of mediocrity and self-centeredness, when we reach out to one another in generosity and love, we share in Christ’s victory over sin
and death.[2]
The mystery of the
Ascension is all about what happens to Jesus as a result of the Resurrection, what it all means for us, and how can
we access the meaning and truth of the Ascension. I’d
suggest we do so by entering the last frontier, the interior depts of ourselves
in silence. By putting aside, the many worldly distractions, which may entail “getting up early and cleaning the windows.” The windows in which we view ourself, how
we view our neighbor, our country and the world, even the way we view our God. The
window view that influences all our relationships.
There is a potent
theological idea that realizes, we become our truest selves in our relationship
with the “other.” To become who we really are, we must be transformed in and through our relationships
with others. For example, parents become their deepest,
truest selves in their children. Teachers become their true selves in their
students. Karl Rahner articulates a theological vision of the mystery of
God becoming God’s real self in Jesus, His Son. Jesus becomes Jesus’ real self in
the church, His bride. The church becomes most real and true in the Sacraments, and when we celebrate the Sacraments (which are community celebrations), we see the chain relate in the other
direction: Sacraments to church, church to Jesus, Jesus to God, who is always
greater. The Ascension shows us Jesus becoming, ascending into, the truest,
deepest reality.[3]
It is in this
experience of purifying our interior life, of cleansing the
window, from which we view
the world, and the experience of living lives as faithful disciples of Jesus we
come to understand how the events of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and
ascension informs our being and mission as Church.
What we see when watching others
depends on the purity of the window through which we look.
[1] New American Bible Revised. Acts 1:11; Ephesians
1:17-23; Mark 16:15-20
[2] Sundays with Jesus by James DiGiacomo, SJ © 2008.
[3] The Word on the Street, by John W. Martins © 2017.
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