Acts 1:1-11; PS 47 God mounts his throne to shouts of joy; a blare of trumpets for the Lord; Luke 24:46-53
"A man's way through life has been well accomplished, not if he has been successful, become famous, or made a lot of money, but only if he had not failed to reach his eternal goal." Cardinal Schonborn
The Feast of the ascension points us to the way home. JEsus returns to the Father. JEsu sis both sign post and path. St. Augustine mentions that Jesus Ascension isn our way home, "he does not hide himself behind the clouds but he has installed heaven in the hearts of his friends.
We now know what is our aim.
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A story:
Recently I was listening to a couple tell the story of their child. They struggled to get pregnant. In fact they tried many means in order to be pregnant. Nothing seemed to work. Until eventually after countless doctor appointments they conceived.
Half way through the pregnancy, something began to happen. Bleeding began to occur and labor began to happen. The mother was taken to the hospital, where her life as well as the life of the child was threatened.
after a few days of drugs, trying to postpone the premature delivery, the doctors could do nothing more.
They informed the couple, they there was a 53% chance the baby would die no matter what they did. They were asking a couple to make a decision on what to do when the child was delivered: when did they want to stop trying.
The reality was that at 23 weeks the viability of the child was not very stable. Full term is 40 weeks.
After discussion with doctors and nurses, the parents decided to let the child decide. If the child came out fighting then they would do what was necessary.
The baby was born and quickly taken to the NICU unit. The parents described the NICU as something out of a science fiction film with beeping and humming and bright lights and tubes every where.
After a few days the baby was living, then the child blew a hole in its intestine and things began to look grim. The baby's belly turn black and distended. There was a tube put in the belly in order to drain the fecal matter and bile from the child.
No one knew whether the baby was going to make it or not. THe parents were trying to figure out where should they draw the line, at one point was enough enough.
The parents feeling absolutely powerless and helpless decided to read to the child. The Dad began to read Harry Potter: the boy who lived. What dad and mom noticed was that when they would read to the child, instantly the baby's SAT level would increase (oxygen level in the blood, high the level, better for the child); when they would stop reading the SAT would drop. As they kept reading, dad would get into the the parts and change his voice, as he changed his voice, the baby's SAT would react to the change.
He was astonished. It seemed to him that the baby was following, engaged in the story. At this point he came to the recognition what it meant to want to live. They baby's response suggested she wanted to see what would happen next. She was intrigued by the story and her SAT would change with each chapter.
He realized that this was what it meant to want to be alive: to what to see what would happen next.
The baby pulled thorough and is 2 years old.
But i want you to focus on that statement: This is what it means to want to live: to want to see what would happen next.
This is what the Ascension offers us: it empowers us to get busy telling the story so that every one can encounter what will happen next. As JEsus tells the apostles, "you will receive power from on high and be my witnesses."
Each of us will be empowered to tell the story, the story of salvation, how we experience it and how God works in and through us.
We are not simply to look upward but rather get busy with letting the story of salvation be told through our lives, "why are you standing there looking up at the sky?"
Indeed, we can;t just sit around, we need get busy telling the story so that others may see what happens next and then desire to live.
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