Sermon Notes–Resurrexit et Ascendit

“Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!”

These words which we so frequently say in the Easter season should never become mere habit. In 1849, St. John Henry Newman produced notes for a catechetical series of homilies on the Creed which can deepen our devotion to Our Lord’s rising. Newman’s brief reflections on the Resurrection and the Ascension kindle us to lift up our hearts to Christ now, that we may also rise with him in the next life.

Both the resurrection and the ascension are integral parts of Christ’s Paschal Mystery. He offered himself, in the fullness of his humanity, to the Father in his crucifixion, rose again from the dead by the power of God, and rose up—returned—to the Father in his Ascension. While Newman does not elaborate in his brief notes, Scripture testifies that Christ’s rising includes his resurrection from the grave and his ascension into heaven (Galatians 6:14, Hebrews 12:2). His cross on earth showed the glory of his self-giving love; his Ascension to the right hand of the Father shows the glory and majesty of his power (1 Peter 3:22). When St. Luke in his Gospel begins the narration of Christ’s journey to Jerusalem in order to give his life, St. Luke records that Christ “set his face” resolutely toward Jerusalem because the “days drew near for him to be received up” (Luke 9:51). Other translations say “for his ascension,” and expositors suggest that the meaning directly implies his Ascension and reception into heaven. This is a royal rising, a heavenly enthronement ceremony. Christ’s rising richly suggests both his rising from the dead, and his rising from earth to the royal courts of heaven where he reigns as our merciful King.

      But this was not before he sojourned for forty days on earth in his wondrously resurrected body. He shared meals with the Apostles, revealed himself to them, and opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. He manifested himself to over five hundred others. He came and went without the need of doors, bringing to Newman’s mind an evocation of abiding in “terrestrial paradise,” as if he already dwelt mysteriously in a land of saints with Enoch and Elijah, who were also mysteriously carried up into heaven.

Jesus was not idle during these forty days—what sublime conversations he must have had with his Apostles and disciples, conversations in which he taught them further about his Church, its plan and structure, and the sacraments. St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that the sacraments are the means by which Christ’s very life passes over into our lives and hearts. During his earthly life, Christ healed, forgave, taught, and blessed many. Later Christians, too, encounter the same degree of his life and power through the sacramental ministry of the Church. We too can share in Christ’s forty resurrected days of glory on earth, and in his heavenly ascension, through the Church and the sacraments Christ entrusted to her.

      Why, Newman asks, does the risen Lord wait forty days before his heavenly rising? Forty is, of course, richly significant in the Jewish tradition. The flood covered the earth in Noah’s time for forty days; the Israelites wandered in the desert for forty days; Elijah defeated the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel and walked to Mount Horeb in forty days; Christ fasted for forty days in the wilderness; and Newman tabulates that Christ spent about forty hours in the tomb. The span of forty was an important Jewish liturgical time of purification, judgment, and preparation. Therefore, the forty days of Easter until the feast of the Ascension is our preparation for the fulfillment of Christian rising, rising from the death of sin with Christ, and preparing ourselves in joy to rise up also with Christ to a heavenly way of life, placing ourselves ever more deeply under his just and merciful rule.

Forty days span Easter to Ascension, while fifty days span Easter to Pentecost, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. While the number “forty” evokes preparation and purification, the number “fifty” evokes liberation, fulfillment, and jubilee. Moses established a “Jubilee” for Israel every fifty years, when slaves would be freed and Jewish society restored (Leviticus 25). Prior to the Babylonian captivity Israel had fallen away from practicing the Jubilee, but the prophet Isaiah looked forward to a day when the Messiah would definitively fulfill the inner meaning of the year of Jubilee (Jeremiah 34, Isaiah 61). Indeed, Christ proclaims its fulfillment in Luke 4:18-19.

      Rising with Christ—from the grave and from the earth—does not mean absence or departure. He “goes to prepare a place for us,” and if he did not depart, he could not send “the Comforter,” the Holy Spirit, by whom we are made intimate sharers in the life of the Blessed Trinity (John 14:3, 16:7). He sits at the right hand of the Father, a symbol of royal favor, as our “one Mediator and Intercessor” (Romans 8:34, Hebrews 7:24-25), which is to say, he presents his perfected and purified human nature to God, in which our humanity is also joined, offered, perfected and purified by his sacrifice and our union with him.

      Newman asks us, therefore, to fix our minds on heaven (Col. 3:2). God’s love alone is “strong as death” (Song of Songs 8:6), inviting us into the divine love of the Trinity wherein all human loves are risen and perfected, enjoying him now and for all eternity. As we journey with the risen Christ to his Ascension, let us listen to him carefully in prayer and meditation, in constant recollection and more frequent confession and communion, preparing ourselves to live more fully under his reign of love. Let us renew our faith and hope in all of our trials and weaknesses, however hidden and small, by invoking the Holy Spirit and entrusting our spirits to him even unto death, awaiting with sure hope the eternal jubilee of heaven.