Reading from Pope Benedict XVI,
from the EPILOGUE to JESUS OF NA ZARETH II.
He Ascended into Heaven—He is Seated at the Right Hand of the Father, and He Will Come Again in Glory
EPILOGUE
JESUS OF NA ZARETH pp.278-293
EPILOGUE
He Ascended into Heaven—He is Seated at the Right Hand of the Father, and He Will Come Again in Glory
All four Gospels, as well as Saint Paul's Resurrection account in I Corinthians 15, presuppose that the period of the risen Lord's appearances was limited. Paul was conscious of being the last to whom an encounter with the risen Christ was granted. The meaning of the Resurrection appearances is also clear from the overall tradition. Above all, it was a matter of assembling a circle of disciples who would be able to testify that Jesus did not remain in the grave, that he lives on. Their testimony is essentially mission: they must proclaim to the world that Jesus is alive—that he is Life itself.
The first task they were given was to attempt once again to gather Israel around the risen Jesus. For Paul, too, the message begins with testimony to the Jews, the first to be destined for salvation. But the final command to those sent out by Jesus is universal: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations" (Mt 28:18-19). "You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1: 8). And as the risen Lord said to Paul: "Depart; for I will send you far away to the Gentiles" (Acts 22:2I).
Included in the message of the witnesses is the proclamation that Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead and to establish God's kingdom definitively in the world. There has been a substantial trend in recent theology to view this proclamation as the principal content, if not the very heart of the message. Thus it is claimed that Jesus himself was already thinking in exclusively eschatological categories. The "imminent expectation" of the kingdom was said to be the specific content of his message, while the original apostolic proclamation supposedly consisted of nothing else.
Had this been the case, one might ask how the Christian faith could have survived when that imminent expectation was not fulfilled. In fact, this theory goes against the texts as well as the reality of nascent Christianity, which experienced the faith as a force in the present and at the same time as hope.
The disciples undoubtedly spoke of Jesus' return, but first and foremost they bore witness to the fact that he is alive now, that he is Life itself, in whom we, too, come alive (cf. Jn 14:19). But how can this be? Where do we find him? Is he, the risen Lord now "exalted at the right hand of God" (Acts 2:33), not for that reason completely absent? Or is he somehow accessible?
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Can we penetrate "to the right hand of God"? Within his absence is there nonetheless at the same time a real presence? Is it not the case that he will come to us only on some unknown last day? Can he come today as well?
These questions have left their mark on John's Gospel, and Saint Paul's letters also attempt to answer them. Yet the essential content of this answer can be gleaned from the accounts of the "Ascension" at the end of Luke's Gospel and the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles.
[Night Office Reading]
Let us turn, then, to the end of Luke's Gospel. Here it is recounted that Jesus appears to the Apostles gathered in Jerusalem, who have just been joined by the two disciples from Emmaus. He eats with them and issues instructions. The closing lines of the Gospel are as follows: "Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them, and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God" (24:50-53).
Let us turn, then, to the end of Luke's Gospel. Here it is recounted that Jesus appears to the Apostles gathered in Jerusalem, who have just been joined by the two disciples from Emmaus. He eats with them and issues instructions. The closing lines of the Gospel are as follows: "Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them, and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God" (24:50-53).
This conclusion surprises us. Luke says that the disciples were full of joy at the Lord's definitive departure. We would have expected the opposite. We would have expected them to be left perplexed and sad. The world was unchanged, and Jesus had gone definitively. They had received a commission that seemed impossible to carry out and lay well beyond their powers. How were they to present themselves to the people in Jerusalem, in Israel, in the whole world, saying: "This Jesus, who seemed to have failed, is actually the redeemer of us all"?
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Every parting causes sadness. Even if it was as one now living that Jesus had left them, how could his definitive separation from them not make them sad? And yet it is written that they returned to Jerusalem with great joy, blessing God. How are we to understand this?
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Every parting causes sadness. Even if it was as one now living that Jesus had left them, how could his definitive separation from them not make them sad? And yet it is written that they returned to Jerusalem with great joy, blessing God. How are we to understand this?
In any case, it follows that the disciples do not feel abandoned. They do not consider Jesus to have disappeared far away into an inaccessible heaven. They are obviously convinced of a new presence of Jesus. They are certain (as the risen Lord said in Saint Matthew's account) that he is now present to them in a new and powerful way. They know that "the right hand of God" to which he "has been exalted" includes a new manner of his presence; they know that he is now permanently among them, in the way that only God can be close to us.
The joy of the disciples after the "Ascension" corrects our image of this event. "Ascension" does not mean departure into a remote region of the cosmos but, rather, the continuing closeness that the disciples experience so strongly that it becomes a source of lasting joy.
Thus the ending of Luke's Gospel helps us to understand better the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, in which Jesus' "Ascension" is explicitly recounted. Before Jesus' departure, a conversation takes place in which the disciples—still trapped in their old ideas—ask whether the time has yet come for the kingdom of Israel to be established.
Jesus counters this notion of a restored Davidic kingdom with a promise and a commission. The promise is that they will be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit;
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the commission is that they are to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth.
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the commission is that they are to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth.
The questioning about times and seasons is explicitly rejected. Speculation over history, looking ahead into the unknown future—these are not fitting attitudes for a disciple. Christianity is the present: it is both gift and task, receiving the gift of God's inner closeness and—as a consequence—bearing witness to Jesus Christ.
In this context belongs the statement about the cloud that takes him up and withdraws him from their sight. The cloud reminds us of the hour of the Transfiguration, in which the bright cloud falls on Jesus and the disciples (cf. Mt 17:5; Mk 9:7; Lk 9:34-35). It reminds us of the hour of Mary's encounter with God's messenger, Gabriel, who announces to her the "overshadowing" with the power of the Most High (cf. Lk I:35). It reminds us of the holy tent of God in the Old Covenant, where the cloud signified the Lord's presence (cf. Ex 40:34-35), the same Lord who, in the form of a cloud, led the people of Israel during their journey through the desert (cf. Ex 13 :21-22). This reference to the cloud is unambiguously theological language. It presents Jesus' departure, not as a journey to the stars, but as his entry into the mystery of God. It evokes an entirely different order of magnitude, a different dimension of being.
The New Testament, from the Acts of the Apostles to the Letter to the Hebrews, describes the "place" to which the cloud took Jesus, using the language of Psalm 100:1, as sitting (or standing) at God's right hand. What does this mean? It does not refer to some distant cosmic space,
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where God has, as it were, set up his throne and given Jesus a place beside the throne. God is not in one space alongside other spaces. God is God—he is the promise and the ground of all the space there is, but he himself is not part of it. God stands in relation to all spaces as Lord and Creator. His presence is not spatial, but divine. "Sitting at God's right hand" means participating in this divine dominion over space.
[End of Night Office Reading]
In a dispute with the Pharisees, Jesus himself provides a new interpretation of Psalm 110:1, which points toward a Christian understanding. He contrasts the idea of the Messiah as a new David ushering in a new Davidic kingdom—the very idea that we have just encountered among the disciples—with a grander vision of the one who is to come: the true Messiah is not David's son, but David's Lord. He sits, not on David's throne, but on God's throne (cf. Mt 22:41-45).
The departing Jesus does not make his way to some distant star. He enters into communion of power and life with the living God, into God's dominion over space. Hence he has not "gone away", but now and forever by God's own power he is present with us and for us. In the farewell discourses of Saint John's Gospel, this is exactly what Jesus says to his disciples: "I go away, and I will come to you" (14:28). These words sum up beautifully what is so special about Jesus' "going away", which is also his "coming", and at the same time they explain the mystery of the Cross, the Resurrection, and the Ascension. His going away is in this sense a coming, a new form of closeness, of continuing presence, which
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for John, too, is linked with the "joy" that we saw in Luke's Gospel.
Because Jesus is with the Father, he has not gone away but remains close to us. Now he is no longer in one particular place in the world as he had been before the "Ascension": now, through his power over space, he is present and accessible to all—throughout history and in every place.
There is a very beautiful story in the Gospel (Mk 6:45-52 and parallel passages) where Jesus anticipates this kind of closeness during his earthly life and so makes it easier for us to understand.
After the multiplication of the loaves, the Lord makes the disciples get into the boat and go before him to Bethsaida on the opposite shore, while he himself dismisses the people. He then goes "up on the mountain" to pray. So the disciples are alone in the boat. There is a headwind, and the lake is turbulent. They are threatened by the power of the waves and the storm. The Lord seems to be far away in prayer on his mountain. But because he is with the Father, he sees them. And because he sees them, he comes to them across the water; he gets into the boat with them and makes it possible for them to continue to their destination.
This is an image for the time of the Church—intended also for us. The Lord is "on the mountain" of the Father. Therefore he sees us. Therefore he can get into the boat of our life at any moment. Therefore we can always call on him; we can always be certain that he sees and hears
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us. In our own day, too, the boat of the Church travels against the headwind of history through the turbulent ocean of time. Often it looks as if it is bound to sink. But the Lord is there, and he comes at the right moment. "I go away, and I will come to you"—that is the essence of Christian trust, the reason for our joy.
From a very different perspective, something similar emerges from a story that is extraordinarily rich in its theology and anthropology, namely, the risen Lord's first appearance to Mary Magdalene. For now, I shall concentrate on just one aspect.
After being addressed by the two angels in white garments, Mary turns around and sees Jesus, but she does not recognize him. Now he calls her by name: "Mary!" Once again she has to turn, and now she joyfully recognizes the risen Lord, whom she addresses as Rabbuni, meaning Teacher. She wants to touch him, to hold him, but the Lord says to her: "Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father" (In 20:17). This surprises us. We would have thought that now, while he is standing before her, she can indeed touch him and hold him. When he has ascended to the Father, this will no longer be possible. But the Lord says the opposite: Now she cannot touch him or hold him. The earlier way of relating to the earthly Jesus is no longer possible.
It is the same phenomenon that Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 5:16-17: "Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation."
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The old manner of human companionship and encounter is over. From now on we can touch Jesus only "with the Father". Now we can touch him only by ascending. From the Father's perspective, in his communion with the Father, he is accessible and close to us in a new way.
This new accessibility presupposes a newness on our part as well. Through Baptism, our life is already hidden with Christ in God—in our current existence we are already "raised" with him at the Father's right hand (cf Col 3: 1-3). If we enter fully into the essence of our Christian life, then we really do touch the risen Lord, then we really do become fully ourselves. Touching Christ and ascending belong together. And let us not forget that for John the place of Christ's "exaltation" is his Cross and that our own ever—necessary "ascension", our "going up on high" in order to touch him, has to be traveled in company with the crucified Jesus.
Christ, at the Father's right hand, is not far away from us. At most we are far from him, but the path that joins us to one another is open. And this path is not a matter of space travel of a cosmic—geographical nature: it is the "space travel" of the heart, from the dimension of self—enclosed isolation to the new dimension of world embracing divine love.
Let us return once more to the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. The content of the Christian life, we said, is not predicting the future, but it is, on the one hand, the gift of the Holy Spirit and, on the other hand, the disciples' worldwide testimony to Jesus, the crucified and
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risen Lord (Acts 1:6-8). And when Jesus was taken from their sight by the cloud, this does not mean that he was transported to another cosmic location, but that he was taken up into God's very being, participating in God's powerful presence in the world.
The text continues. As happened earlier at the tomb (Lk 24:4), so now there appear two men dressed in white, and they pronounce this message: "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven" (Acts I:II). With these words, faith in Jesus' return is strengthened, but at the same time it is stressed once more that the disciples are not to gaze into heaven or to know times and seasons, which are concealed in the mystery of God. Their task at this moment is to proclaim to the ends of the earth their witness to Christ.
Faith in Christ's return is the second pillar of the Christian confession. He who took flesh and now retains his humanity forever, he who has eternally opened up within God a space for humanity, now calls the whole world into this open space in God, so that in the end God may be all in all and the Son may hand over to the Father the whole world that is gathered together in him (cf I Cor 15: 20-28). Herein is contained the certainty of hope that God will wipe away every tear, that nothing meaningless will remain, that every injustice will be remedied and justice restored. The triumph of love will be the last word of world history.
Vigilance is demanded of Christians as the basic attitude for the "interim time". This vigilance means, on the
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one hand, that man does not lock himself into the here and now and concern himself only with tangible things, but that he raises his eyes above the present moment and its immediate urgency. Keeping one's gaze freely fixed upon God in order to receive from him the criterion of right action and the capacity for it—that is what matters.
Vigilance means first of all openness to the good, to the truth, to God, in the midst of an often meaningless world and in the midst of the power of evil. It means that man tries with all his strength and with great sobriety to do what is right; it means that he lives, not according to his own wishes, but according to the signpost of faith. All this is presented in Jesus' eschatological parables, especially in the parable of the vigilant servant (Lk I2:42-48) and, in a different way, in the parable of the wise and foolish virgins (Mt 25:1-13).
But what is the position now in the Christian life regarding expectation of the Lord's return? Are we to expect him, or do we prefer not to? Even in his day, Cyprian of Carthage (d. 258) had to warn his readers not to neglect to pray for Christ's second coming through fear of great calamities or fear of death. Should this passing world be dearer to us than the Lord for whom we are actually waiting?
The Book of Revelation concludes with the promise of the Lord's return and with a prayer for it: "He who testifies to these things says, 'Surely I am coming soon.' Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!" (22: 20). It is the prayer of one who loves, one who is surrounded in the besieged city by all the dangers and terrors of destruction and can only
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wait for the arrival of the beloved who has the power to end the siege and to bring salvation. It is the hope—filled cry for Jesus to draw near in a situation of danger where he alone can help.
At the end of the First Letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul quotes the same prayer in an Aramaic version, which as it happens can be divided differently and is therefore open to different interpretations: Marana tha (Lord, come!), or Maran atha (the Lord has come). This twofold reading brings out clearly the peculiar nature of the Christian expectation of Jesus' coming. It is the invocation "Come!" and at the same time the grateful certainty that "he has come".
From the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (Didache, ca. 100), we know that this invocation formed part of the liturgical prayers of the eucharistic celebrations of the earliest Christian communities, and here too we find a concrete illustration of the unity of the two readings. Christians pray for Jesus' definitive coming, and at the same time they experience with joy and thankfulness that he has already anticipated this coming and has entered into our midst here and now.
Christian prayer for the Lord's return always includes the experience of his presence. It is never purely focused on the future. The words of the risen Lord make the point: "I am with you always, to the close of the age" (Mt 28:20). He is with us now, and especially close in the eucharistic presence. Yet, conversely, the Christian experience of the Lord's presence does include a certain tension toward the future, toward the moment when that
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presence will be definitively fulfilled: the presence is not yet complete. It pushes beyond itself. It sets us in motion toward the definitive.
This inherent tension in Christian expectation of the Lord's return, which must leave its mark on Christian life and prayer, may be helpfully clarified by two contrasting theological approaches. On the First Sunday of Advent, the Roman breviary presents us with a catechesis by Cyril of Jerusalem (Cat. XV, 1-3; PC 33, 870-874), which begins with the words: "We preach not one coming only of Christ, but a second also ... Generally speaking, everything that concerns our Lord Jesus Christ is twofold. His birth is twofold: one, of God before time began; the other, of the Virgin in the fullness of time. His descent is twofold: one, unperceived ... the other, before the eyes of all, is yet to happen." This language of the twofold coming of Christ has left its mark on Christianity, and it is an essential element of the Advent proclamation. It is correct, but incomplete.
A few days later, on Wednesday of the First Week of Advent, the breviary offers a reflection from the Advent sermons of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, which fills out the picture somewhat. There we read: "We have come to know a threefold coming of the Lord. The third coming takes place between the other two [adventus medius] ... his first coming was in the flesh and in weakness, this intermediary coming is in the spirit and in power, the last coming will be in glory and majesty" (In Adventu Domini, serm. III, 4; V, I; PL 183, 45 A; 50 C-D). Bernard bases
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his thesis on John 14:23: "If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him."
Specific reference is made to a "coming" of the Father and the Son: it is an eschatology of the present that John has developed. It does not abandon the expectation of a definitive coming that will change the world, but it shows that the interim time is not empty: it is marked by the adventus medius, the middle coming, of which Bernard speaks. This anticipatory presence is an essential element in Christian eschatology, in Christian life.
Even if the term adventus medius was unknown before Bernard, the idea has nevertheless been present in different forms throughout the whole of Christian tradition from the outset. Let us recall, for example, that Saint Augustine sees the clouds on which the Judge of the world is to arrive as the word of proclamation. The words of the message, handed on by the witnesses, are the cloud that brings Christ into the world—here and now. And in this way the world is prepared for his definitive coming. The "middle coming" takes place in a great variety of ways. The Lord comes through his word; he comes in the sacraments, especially in the most Holy Eucharist; he comes into my life through words or events.
Yet he also comes in ways that change the world. The ministry of the two great figures Francis and Dominic in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was one way in which Christ entered anew into history, communicating his word and his love with fresh vigor. It was one way in which he renewed his Church and drew history toward
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himself. We could say much the same of the saints of the sixteenth century. Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Ignatius Loyola, and Francis Xavier all opened up new ways for the Lord to enter into the confused history of their century as it was pulling away from him. His mystery, his figure enters anew—and most importantly, his power to transform men's lives and to refashion history becomes present in a new way.
Can we pray, therefore, for the coming of Jesus? Can we sincerely say: "Marana tha! Come, Lord Jesus!"? Yes, we can. And not only that: we must! We pray for anticipations of his world—changing presence. We pray to him in moments of personal tribulation: Come, Lord Jesus, and draw my life into the presence of your kindly power. We ask him to be close to those we love or for whom we are anxious. We ask him to be present and effective in his Church.
Why not ask him to send us new witnesses of his presence today, in whom he himself will come to us? And this prayer, while it is not directly focused on the end of the world, is nevertheless a real prayer for his coming; it contains the full breadth of the prayer that he himself taught us: "Your kingdom come!" Come, Lord Jesus!
Let us return once more to the ending of Luke's Gospel. Jesus led his followers into the vicinity of Bethany, we are told. "Lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them, and was carried up into heaven" (24:50-51). Jesus departs in the act of blessing. He goes while blessing, and he remains in that
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gesture of blessing. His hands remain stretched out over this world. The blessing hands of Christ are like a roof that protects us. But at the same time, they are a gesture of opening up, tearing the world open so that heaven may enter in, may become "present" within it.
The gesture of hands outstretched in blessing expresses Jesus' continuing relationship to his disciples, to the world. In departing, he comes to us, in order to raise us up above ourselves and to open up the world to God. That is why the disciples could return home from Bethany rejoicing. In faith we know that Jesus holds his hands stretched out in blessing over us. That is the lasting motive of Christian joy.
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