When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up towards heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.’ Acts1:9-11

Yesterday was the feast day of the Ascension. More often than not, this day is weakly observed and sometimes even forgotten. There was a time when it was considered very important. Just look at our Nicene Creed, they dedicated more lines to describing the Ascension of Our Lord:

He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end. 

For us, modern people, words have lost their impact. We listen to people rambling on for hours without saying anything of significance. We hear words said without any commitment or intention to put them into practice. We don’t ???much of words. However, when the Nicene Creed was composed, these words were carefully chosen and debated. There were no such thing was fillers. The bishops involved wanted to make sure that the Creed in a succinct manner communicated to the people the essencial elements of our faith. They dedicated more lines to the Ascension because it was important. It speaks of our relationship with Jesus today. We speak frequently of the Resurrected Christ and rightly so. We must also speak about the Ascended Christ. He is the same person but we must not forget that Christ rose from the dead to assume His place at the Right Hand of the Father. This is His ministry now.

Many years ago, I lived in Indonesia, more specifically the capital city of Jakarta. I was surprised to learn that the feast of Ascension was a public holiday. Till today, it is the only country where this feast day is officially a public holiday. However, it wasn’t considered a Christian holiday but a Muslim one. Muslims believed that Jesus ascended.

Muslims regard Jesus as the greatest prophet of Islam. They believe that He truly lived out the meaning of Islam from His birth to His ascension. Islam means submission to the will of God. They believe that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary. They also believe that He will return to judge. However, they do not believe that Jesus died on the cross nor rose from the dead. Even then, He is venerated by some Muslim sects, especially among the Sufis. For Muslims, the ascension of Jesus means the hope that He will one day return to put an end to evil. They believe that the prophet Jesus will return to kill the Antichrist or Satan. Thus, for the Muslims, Jesus is waiting in heaven until the final day to carry out God’s justice. This is the Muslim view of the ascension. That is consistent with their doctrines.

However, this is not the Christian view. Unfortunately, many churches tend to reduce the feast of Ascension as a mere reminder that Jesus will return the same manner. This is just a part of it. It is the future event. However, Jesus is now the fulling the essential part of His ministry at the right hand of the Father.

In reality, the whole ministry of Jesus was leading up to this. He did not come to die for our sins. He came to become our High Priest.

The Gospel of John gives us a rather different account of the Ascension than the gospel of Luke. The author of the gospel of Luke and Acts states that Jesus waited forty days after the resurrection before ascending to Heaven. However, according to the Gospel of John, Jesus ascended almost immediately after the resurrection. Right after Jesus revealed his presence to Mary Magdalene, He warned her;

Jesus said to her, ‘Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”’ John 20:17

The accounts may seem to contradict each other, but in fact they are in agreement. Both evangelists—that is, all the authors of the New Testament—are not writing a news report about Jesus in which they would have to get every detail objectively correct. They are not doing journalistic work. First of all, complete objectivity does not exist. When someone writes about something or reports an event, it is always biased. The authors of the New Testament were also biased. They have only one objective. They wanted to give us a clear portrait of the person of Jesus. Both accounts of the Ascension do this perfectly. The gospel of John wanted to emphasize on the priestly nature of the Ascension. Jesus was ascending to bring the offering of His Life to the presence of the Father. His Life and Death on Earth qualified Him to be our High Priest and His resurrection is the proof of the Father’s offering.

Today, we only have a vague idea of what a priest is. We might think in terms of the Catholic Church or Orthodox Church and in some circles of the Anglican church. However, what we have in Western Christianity is like a hybrid of the rabbi and the priest. In Jesus’ time, the priest had a specific task. He brought the sacrifice into the Holy of Holies. He presented the people’s sacrifice before God’s altar. He represented the people before God, that is to say, the priest was supposed to be the best representative of the people. Furthermore, he could never enter God’s sanctuary empty-handed. In fact, It was forbidden to enter God’s presence without an offering. The offerings, according to the Law, had to be the best of the best; anything else was an offense to God. In the Old Testament, we can read about God’s search for the perfect High Priest to represent humanity before God. First it was Adam and Eve, then Noah, then Abraham and Moses.

The most perfect offering humans can give to God is to reflect His image in our lives. Unfortunately, none of these high priests from the past could do this. They were imperfect. They always offered animal sacrifices which were better than themselves. The sacrificed animals were innocent. They hoped that God would look at the sacrifice and forgive the failures of human beings. However, God is not interested in animal sacrifices. He wanted human beings to live their lives in a way which truly reflected the image of God.

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23

Nietzsche, one of the most formidable enemies of Christianity, once wrote that there is only one Christian in this world and he died on the cross. The rest of us are weak imitations. I have to say Nietzsche is right. I notice myself often quoting this philosopher. I am not influenced by him but his thoughts are prominent today and they are a confrontation against Christianity. We need to answer his criticism or at least attempt to do so.

We have to admit that we are indeed only weak imitations of Jesus. However, we have a priest who represents us before the throne of God. Nietzsche was not so gracious when he looked at humanity. However, our concern should not be with what philosophers or what the world thinks about us. To some extent, it is much easier to deceive a human being — just say flattering words to pamper one’s ego and we would easily win them over. Many malicious people know this. However, it does not work with God. We need someone to help us. Thanks be to God, we have a High Priest who stands before God and represents us. What does this mean for everyday life? It is a mystery but not in the sense of something unknowable. It is a mystery revealing layers of its truth as we walk in deeper communion with our Lord. As we discover each layer, our souls are filled with joy and eternal happiness. We discover the wealth of God’s love. We can rejoice that our High Priest is the filter through whom our Father looks at Humanity. In other words, when God looks at us, He sees the Light of Jesus shining in us like the stained glass in ancient churches. At night, when there is no Light, stained glass does not look beautiful at all. However, the light of the sun highlights all its beauty. In the same way, Jesus stands before our Heavenly Father and allow the Light of His Life to illuminate our souls before God. Jesus’ light manifests in us the true beauty of being; the person that our heavenly Father has created us to be.

Jesus is beside God so that our Heavenly Father can see the world through Christ. Therefore, when God looks at one of our homeless youth, He does not see Bruno as sitting there begging. He sees Bruno through the Light of our High Priest shining in Him. He sees Felipe shining in the Light of our High Priest. He sees… I’m not going to mention all the names of our youth here but it is good for me to remind myself that I need to discern the Light of Jesus singing through them and especially through the people whom I don’t particularly like.

There is also another aspect of the priesthood in Jesus’s time. The priest represents God to the people. However, I have limited space here to consider all the mysteries revealed in the Ascension. This is why we need to celebrate this feast day yearly with great reverence. We have so many things to think about and understand.

For now, it is enough to remember that we have a high priest who represents us. He is not there asking for God’s favor on our part. Our God is loving and compassionate. Jesus is there to represent us. He reflects our true potential if we allow His love to break us free from the bondage of sin. He is there to remind the heavenly hosts that despite our sins and failures, we are still beautiful creations of God. He is there interceding for us so that we can become who He is.