If I Leave Here Would You Understand?
Ascension : 1 June 2014
Father Hugh Bowron, 2013There are heart breaking times in our lives when people we are very attached to go and we are left struggling to make sense of it all. Later on, perhaps, we can see that there was a reason for it, one that has to do with our ultimate well being. Perhaps an older member of our family who has been diminished by dementia dies, and we are set free to remember them as they were in their prime. Perhaps someone we felt very attached to abruptly exits, and we come to realise that life with them would have been very difficult indeed. Perhaps someone close to us dies in tragic and sudden circumstances, leaving us wondering why it happened. Perhaps a close friend goes overseas to pursue a work opportunity, and we are obliged to go outside the cocoon of our safe social world to make new friends. The theme of letting go to eventually receive something better is a constant in our lives.
The angelic salutation of joy as Jesus was received into heaven must have sounded pretty hollow to the disciples. Having lost him so tragically in the first place how wonderful to have him turning up so unexpectedly in his fleeting appearances at beach barbecues, evening meals, and walks in the country. Their hearts must have been set on having him around for a long time, perhaps for the rest of their lives.
But he is off, gone from sight. It must have hard to hear or remember the promise that he was coming back in the same way. Or that he was about to give another gift.
Writers and film makers who have speculated about what would have happened if Jesus had settled down with a wife and children into a less intense middle age, rather like the prophet Muhammad, have never really understood him at all.
He is a free spirit, a nomad, who wants to share his company with as many people as possible. He is keen to be off to other worlds, new societies, other times and places to make himself known there also. That can only happen if he becomes a universal presence, a world spanning spirit, a star with the kind of wide spread recognition that can advance God’s purposes.
Besides, there is the question of home coming for him. Seated at table with the Father and the Spirit, the job is, as it were, done. It is time to rejoice and celebrate. While there is lots of mopping up work to be done, he has achieved what he set out to do. The human race has been set free. As it says in the Eucharistic preface through the Easter season:
The reign of sin is ended, A new age has dawned A broken world is restored And we are made whole once more.
When we stop clinging to people we were once very attached to, we are set free to grow into an adult maturity that equips us better for the business of living. If Jesus had stuck around with the disciples there would always have been the danger that they would have been diminished into a kind of private club of religious consolation and teachers pet internal competition. Now they have to grow up into the rewarding task of thinking like him, behaving like him, being adventurous like him. They must expand in their sense of being and go forward into the risk of life.
Often too, they will have to work things out for themselves in situations that never cropped up in the ministry of Jesus. That is what being an adult is all about. Using common sense, the internalised value system of your mentors, and the acquired wisdom of your life experience to make good judgements in complex situations.
When people we love leave us through death, through dumping us, or because of new opportunities we grieve and are afraid, and wonder what to do with ourselves. Ascension day reminds us that there is life beyond abandonment, maybe a very full life if we are brave, and that there are always surprises, sometimes very unexpected and joyful surprises, as we will be finding out next week at the feast of Pentecost.
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