The Ascension and Pentecost

These next couple of weekends are important ones within our Church! This weekend we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension and next weekend we celebrate Pentecost. These two celebrations mark the fact that we are being strengthened and then being sent. Jesus ascends into heaven and he allows the Apostles to witness this great scene so that they know that He has gone away, but he tells them that they will not be left alone. We will see that particular scene next week.

Both of these two celebrations are important for us because they give us both the path that we are to follow as well as our mission to spread the Gospel in the world. After Jesus ascends, the angels ask the Apostles “why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.” In other words, move along, there is nothing else to see here, go and do what He told you to. Go out into the world and spread the good news. But even though we are being lead and told to do something, we do not always follow, because we need some help.

Next week we hear that the disciples receive the gift of the Holy Spirit enabling them and giving them the courage to go and preach the Gospel to all people. Sometimes this is called the birthday of the Church, where the Apostles, and now we, are being sent to fulfill Jesus’ mission. Jesus came into the world to found a Church and to use that Church to bring all people back to the Father in the kingdom of Heaven. Often times we hear the phrase “sola scriptura” or Scripture alone, but the problem with this is that Jesus did not come to give us a book, he came to give us a Church and a mission. In fact, there are only a few words that we know Jesus himself actually wrote, and the words themselves are not recorded, remember the woman caught in adultery, and Jesus knelt down and wrote in the dirt. Jesus could have easily come down from Heaven and said, “here is the book you need to read and follow it” but he didn’t, he came down to the earth to live our lives and he showed us the path we are to lead by walking it with us, and then sent us to follow that path with the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

He tells us that he will never leave us alone and the descent of the Holy Spirit is proof of that. Jesus gave us an example as well as a mission to follow, and that mission is to follow him and then go out into the world to lead others to that same path. That is the message and mission of the Ascension and Pentecost, to take up where Jesus left off and continue to spread the Good News to the world!

God bless,
Fr. Ken