Seventh Sunday of Easter May 21, 2023

Readings: Acts 1.1-11, Ephesians 1.17-23. Mathew 28.16-20

After the Lord’s Ascension, humanity has had a place – the place of honour – at the right hand of God for all eternity. Jesus wasn’t abandoning his people, but rather, he was going before them, manifesting the gloriously beautiful fruits of his resurrection from the dead. Paradoxically, in his Ascension, Jesus didn’t become more distant from his people, but instead was making it possible for us to have a closer and more intimate connection with the life of heaven. As the second reading described it, he opened a ‘new and living way … for us through the curtain’. And where Jesus, the Head, has gone before in glory, we, the Body are called to follow in hope…

This joyful and hopeful Good News comes with implications too. In both the first reading and the Gospel, Jesus tells the disciples that they are to be witnesses. They are to carry on his mission in the world. Like students reaching the end of their time at school, they must now step up and take responsibility. There’s something almost comic about the two angels appearing as the disciples watched Jesus ascend into heaven. ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?’ It’s as if they’re saying that the party is over now and it’s time to get on with the work of being his witnesses. He promised the Holy Spirit, to equip them for that task, and of course he would continue to be present when they gathered for the Breaking of Bread. We are called to continue his mission.                                                                                                         

‘Christ has no body but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world,

Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,

Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, Yours are the eyes, you are his body.

Christ has no body now but yours.’ [St Teresa of Avila]

Fr. Terry.