Authority - Mission - Presence

Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord Year A

The gospel passage that I’ve just read comes at the end of the Gospel of St Matthew and unlike the Gospel of St Luke and its appendix, the Acts of the Apostles, it does not mention the event of the ascension of our Lord. We have the first reading from Acts to provide us the details of this event. St Matthew ends his gospel by focusing on the action of our Lord commissioning His disciples and records His words in this regard. This passage is popularly known among Protestants (and Catholics, who have also gotten use to the name) as the Great Commission. Though there is nothing essentially wrong with this term, it would appear that its use comes quite late in Christian history, even among the Protestants.

Rather than be distracted by the debate over its proper name, I think it is far more important to look at our lectionary selection for today. The readings for this feast can be summarised in three words - authority, mission and presence.

Authority is one of those words that usually creates an instant emotional reaction—in some folks, fear and distrust, in others safety and order. While the Lord Jesus was the image of love and gentleness, today He claims that “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to” Him. The mention of “heaven and earth” is a short hand which means “everything”, “all.” So, when our Lord told His disciples this, He was claiming something that no other mortal, even the greatest emperor or king, could claim. His authority is absolute.

But our Lord’s claim was not just that He possessed an authority and could exercise a power that was above and beyond every human authority and sovereignty but it was also a divine claim. Authority is attributed to God the Father; it is His very nature. Authority alludes to the Deity’s right to command and enforce obedience. It is God who can rightfully and exclusively claim that He possesses “all authority in heaven and on earth.” Throughout His earthly life and public ministry, our Lord showed that He had authority over demons, sickness, death and the wild forces of nature. But one could question the limits of His authority when He was arrested, sentenced and executed. His authority seemed to have stopped here. But the resurrection proved that even here our Lord’s authority was not circumscribed by human authority.

Today, there is a tension and battle raging between human authority and divine authority. If human authority is subject to divine authority and obeys the dictates of the latter, there is no issue because there is no conflict. For to obey human authority in such an instance would be to obey divine authority. But the problem arises when there is a conflict between human authority and that of God’s - that is when governments, associations, leaders, parents command us to disobey God, which is in essence ordering us to sin - then we must echo the words of St Peter: “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). God’s authority must always take priority even if it means we would have to disobey civil and human authority, including going against our own wishes.

The authority which the Lord exercises is the basis of what follows. He has given us a mission: “Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you.” There are three parts to this commission and each part is essential to the mission of the Church and every Christian. These are non-negotiable. We are called to “make disciples of all nations,” in other words, that we have a duty to lead others to Christ and make them His followers. The simplicity of the words betrays their gravity. In today’s multicultural world, many of us ignore or shy away from this commission for fear that we would be regarded as intolerant or even militant in terms of religious convictions. Political correctness demands that we respect others by not imposing our views on them. But the call to evangelise is not one which is coercive. We are not asked to point a gun to the head of the person and force them to believe what we believe. Rather, evangelisation is a call to be attractive, or to be more accurate, to make our faith more attractive. For our faith to be attractive, our public witness of the faith must be consistent with our actions, our words must be credible, and our practice of the faith must be filled with joy and enthusiasm.

But evangelisation does not stop with just preaching the gospel in words and deeds. It must also lead to conversion and baptism, insertion into the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Church. Baptism is the only first step after evangelisation. What follows must be catechesis: we will need to “teach them to observe all the commands” the Lord has given us, and this is a life-time’s project and not just confined to Sunday School for children and teenagers.

Finally, our Lord Jesus ends the “Great Commission” by assuring the disciples that He will be with them every step of the way as they embark on this journey of declaring and discipling. This is the great paradox of this event. Our Lord’s physical and bodily departure would result in His return in sacramental form - He will continue to be present in, through, and to His Church. Not in a purely symbolic way but in a manner which is true, real and substantial, especially in the Sacraments.

Matthew concludes his gospel in much the same way as he began, by reminding us that God has drawn near to us through Jesus. The child called Immanuel (“God with us,” Matt 1:23) is now the Risen Saviour who has promised that He will never leave or forsake His followers. His Ascension is not a departure where He distances Himself from us, but rather an insertion of His real presence in the Church where He continues to accompany us, lead us, guide us and feed us with His own Body and Blood. And with His Ascension, He inaugurates the next part of His grand plan which involves the Holy Spirit. Through His promised Spirit dwelling in them, they would be filled with both the presence and the power of Christ as they spread the gospel message from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. We’ve been given the sacred privilege of joining Christ in His work of spreading His name and making His disciples all over the world, and because He sends us out in the authority of His Father and in the fellowship of His Spirit, we have all we need to obey Him wherever He leads.