Ascension 2023
When you take leave of a dear one, it is sometimes a nice thing to say, ‘I leave you for now, but, you know, I am always with you, and you are always in my thoughts and in my heart’. This is the way good friends speak – when they need to, for one of the privileges of friendship is precisely that that sort of thing does not need words to be understood.
Jesus certainly shows Himself a very good friend of our human family – a genuine philanthropist in the etymological sense of the word – when His very last words, according to Matthew’s Gospel, are precisely, ‘Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age’. These are the words of the God who so loved the world (Jn 3:16) that He chose to dwell among us (Jn 1:14) and that, when the moment had come for Him to depart from this world and to go to His Father (Jn 16:28) found the way to assure us of His constant presence and action among us.
He showed Himself a friend, and more than a friend. Jesus was more than a heavenly visitor and a temporary guest of our earthly regions. He was – and He is – God coming to us, God visiting us, God caring for us, God saving us, God opening to us the treasury of His love and His life. He is the God whom ‘heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain’ (1 Kg 8:27), how much less our churches, our congregations, and our hearts! We are in Him and He is in us. We do not find Him outside, but within. He is the One who is passionately coming into us, wishing to dwell in our very heart of hearts.
This is true. However, Jesus’ last words are not, ‘I am in you always, to the close of the ages’ but ‘I am with you’. Today we want to better understand this ‘with’. We want to go deeper into the mystery of love which this ‘with’ reveals. Now, the final image of the Song of Songs can be of some help. You may remember the Song tells the love story between a man and a woman who meet, are again separated, and, after many adventures, finally become inseparable. The final image is that of a couple, ‘Who is she who is coming up from the wilderness leaning upon her beloved?’ (Sg 8:5) They used to walk towards one another. Now they walk together in the same direction. They lean upon one another. They are with one another on the way. Is this not an image of the Church invited to lean upon the arm of Jesus, the Beloved who is always with her, till the close of the ages, till the end of the way?
To be a Christian is to walk towards God, towards our Father in heaven – and certainly, today’s feast stresses this upward dimension of our progress. But it is also to walk with God, with Jesus, to be with Jesus on the way. Like pilgrims, we walk our daily route, in sunny and stormy weather, sometimes joyful sometimes struggling, today running, tomorrow limping. Our ways are very different. Each way is unique. But the point is that, whatever my way, easy or difficult, direct or tortuous, Jesus offers me His arm, my Friend gives me a hand, God is with me, with each of us, with us all.
Jesus going up to the Father is the same One who is walking with us on the way. The way can be beautiful, or less attractive. But Jesus is the companion, the friend, with whom my way becomes the Way to the Truth and into the Life. Gradually one understands that the real point of the way is the opportunity to get closer to the One who is with us on the way. The more we lean upon His arm, the more we rely on His mercy and His grace, the more, too, we are given to enter the unfathomable riches of His Heart. The way with Jesus is a way into Love, with a capital L, or, if you prefer, a way into God, Himself.
‘I am with you always’. Let us treasure these words of our great Friend, Jesus. A Christian is never alone. Friendship with Jesus is our privilege. Life with Jesus is our joy.