The Easter Season is coming to an end.

Homily

Ascension Sunday

12^th May 2024

First reading:	Acts 1:1-11
Responsorial Psalm:	Psalm 46(47):2-3,6-9
Second reading:	Ephesians 4:1-7,11-13
Gospel:	Mark 16:15-20

By Rev. Mr. George Kingsnorth (Deacon)

The Easter Season is coming to an end. We are encouraged not to be sad as a new season is beginning. Jesus has completed his human mission on earth. Through his death and descent into hell, he has released all those captives so that they may be forgiven all their sins and can also see paradise. We, today celebrate Jesus’ ascension into Heaven, where he now sits at the right-hand side of God the Father. He has been given authority over everything.

Yet, we are all allowed to make our own choices as to whether we believe or not. However, there is a consequence to which way we choose to go. If we trust in Our Lord, and give our lives over to him where he will take our burdens and give us peace, we will be saved. If we choose not to believe and try to go our own way, in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus tells us that we will be condemned. We will see our lives go wrong, we will see despair, and we will struggle. That emptiness in our hearts is the space that once was filled with Jesus but is now vacant. No matter how much effort we put in to try to fill the hole, the dissatisfaction felt, cannot be replaced sufficiently with anything else but the Holy Spirit. If we can be patient and allow the Holy Spirit to come into our lives, we will be richly rewarded.

Last week, Jesus told us that we did not choose him but that he chose us. Luke, in Acts, once more tells us that Jesus chose the Apostles through the Holy Spirit. Before he Ascended, Jesus told his disciples to stay where they were in Jerusalem and to wait for the Holy Spirit. And only then with the Power of the Holy Spirit, would they be capable of witnessing to the whole world the message about the Kingdom of God.

In Heaven, Jesus will be our advocate to the Father. He will argue our case, we just have to put our trust in him. By doing so, the Holy Spirit will reside in us, and we will receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit, through the grace of God the Father. We will not need to worry about what to say, especially when we are persecuted, as Jesus tells us in Matthew’s Gospel, “What you are to say will be given to you when the time comes. Because it is not you who will be speaking: the Spirit of your Father will be speaking in you.” (Mt10:19-20)

In Ephesians, Paul tells us that the gifts of the Holy Spirit include some people prophesying, some evangelising, and others being pastors or teachers, but that all will be done in unity in serving and building up the body of Christ. We are the body of Christ, his church. There is only one body made of many parts, one Spirit, all called by the one Lord into one faith, through one baptism to belong to one God the Father.

Today, Jesus returned to his Father in Heaven, for the Holy Spirit to come down on all of us and to lead us on the right path. The disciples made their way back to Jerusalem and prayed. As they waited for the Holy Spirit, Peter addressed the group regarding what had happened to Judas, who had betrayed Jesus and then paid for his crime through his death at the Potter’s Field. He suggested it was time for another within their group to be chosen to take Judas’ place. Barsabbas and Matthias were nominated, asking the Lord, who could read everyone’s hearts, to let them know who his choice was. Then lots were drawn, and Matthias was selected, so there were once more twelve apostles.

Paul also told the Ephesians, that those who abandon Jesus, will have their senses dulled and be unable to tell the difference between right and wrong. In their hearts they have shut themselves off from God and their lives will become perverse because they have not listened to what the truth is in Jesus. Paul encourages all of us to give up anything in our lives that leads us away from Christ through illusory desires and to renew our minds through a spiritual revolution to become a new self, created by God’s way to be good and holy through truth.

At the beginning of Lent, we were marked by the sign of the cross and told to repent and believe in the Gospel. As we spend this next week waiting for the Holy Spirit, let us reflect upon our own sins, things that separate us from Jesus, seek the opportunity to repent and turn back to the Gospel, the Good News Jesus brings, that the Kingdom of God is near at hand.

Then with the Holy Spirit, we can go out and make disciples from all nations trusting that Jesus is with us always, until the end of time.

Amen.

 

 

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