Ascension - Homily 1

Homily 1 - 2005

It is a wonderfully rich and symbolic scenario that Matthew puts together today to sum up his gospel.  Jesus has been crucified.  He has since risen.  Matthew tells us that the disciples set out for Galilee – hesitant, yet open to be surprised.  Where is Galilee? For them, Galilee is where they come from, where they live, where they are at home.  For us readers, Galilee is postcode 3400, where we live, where we work, with the family, whatever.  They set out to the mountain: where the air is thinner, closer to the sky, to the heavens, to wherever we best get closer to the mystery that is God, to however we best get closer to the mystery that is God – for me, that is wherever I can be still and descend into my deeper self.

Jesus came up and spoke to them.  Jesus comes towards them.  He takes the initiative.  He steps into our lives, and he says: Know that I am with you always, in life as it is (not as it should be, or would have been if, but as it is), into your life, just as you are – not yet ready perhaps, hesitant, but open.

Who is the one who is with us? Jesus, the one to whom God has now given all authority: not the capacity to impose from without, from above, but the power and the energy to author, to initiate, to make happen, to give life to.

As he powerfully steps into our lives, he directs us to make disciples of all the nations, of everyone, no one excluded, to make disciples, i.e. followers of Jesus, lovers of life, lovers of God, lovers of people –  like Jesus

But can anyone make anyone come alive with love? He had trouble himself; he hardly succeeded by the time they crucified him, but his method involved, among other things, exposing people to God, to the God who is, to the God whom he loved so deeply.

So, not surprisingly, he says to us: Baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy Spirit: immerse them in the reality, the truth of God, whose love and mercy he had shown to the world in his own love and mercy, and who wants to continue doing that, through our love and mercy as we open ourselves to his Spirit.  Baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy Spirit.  But baptism is a community action, the action of the community of disciples, of the Church.  It consists in bringing people on board, bringing people into the community of disciples, of lovers of God, of each other, of anyone.

He went on to say: Teach them to observe all the commands I gave you.  The lifestyle of genuine disciples, lovers of Jesus, is inevitably guided by the lifestyle of Jesus.  His commands translate the deepest values of his heart into a world that seems sometimes frightened to run the risk of loving deeply, and unfree to move the spotlight from their own comfort zone to active concern for others, particularly for the ones who were the focus of so much of Jesus’ concern – the marginalised, the oppressed, the hungry, the thirsty, the imprisoned.

Let’s listen again to the risen Jesus as he says this time to us: All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you.  And know that I am with you always.

Thanks to Matthew, for summing up the gospel so masterfully!