[AI translation] This Scripture I have just read is part of the scene that took place on Easter morning in Joseph's garden in Arimathea, where Mary Magdalene was looking for Jesus in the tomb and could not find him. And as she was weeping in sorrow, Jesus himself suddenly stood behind her and spoke to her. Mary, as soon as she recognized the Lord, evidently stretched out her arms to grasp him, for Jesus then says to her, "Touch me not; for I have not yet ascended to my Father; but go to my brethren and say to them: I go up to my Father, and to your fathers, and to my God, and to your God." Now I want to pick out just this one verse from the whole story, because in this sentence Jesus contains the whole mystery of the ascension: both his apparent sadness and his real joy. His apparent impoverishment and his real enrichment. So: his blessing! Let us see.1) The fact that we are celebrating today, that is, the ascension of Jesus: apparently, it is a real poverty, a real sadness, because Jesus is leaving! It is a change in the friendly, intimate relationship that had hitherto existed between His disciples and Him. It will no longer be the same between them, they will no longer walk together in towns and villages, they will no longer sit together at table, they will no longer hear His voice as before. "I will go up to my Father," he says to Mary. It almost sounds as if he is saying goodbye, as if he is saying: It sounds a little like someone once mockingly said: 'I'm leaving you, you can't be helped, I've tried everything, I didn't have to, so I'm going where it's good.' You can't stand me on this planet anyway, try it without me! And he finished: he let you down and you're celebrating?!
Yes, that's what a scoffer once thought. But isn't that how some haunting thought sometimes mocks us too? No believer is always the same. He too has his doubts sometimes. And he also has these thoughts, where is the heaven to which Jesus went? Sometimes that heaven seems so terribly far away. And so uncertain! Jesus there - and we here! He has gone victorious into glory, and left us here in misery. There the bridegroom goes to heaven, and meanwhile we get the obituaries for the funeral. He goes triumphantly to heaven, where there is no more sickness and we can barely house our patients in the hospitals! He goes happily to the kingdom of eternal peace, while we read the newspapers with anxious hearts, wondering whether we will succeed in saving the world from a terrible destruction. Yes, the whole history of the Ascension is full of glory, full of glory, and the continuation of earthly history, the history of the world and the Church is full of blood, tears, wailing, horror...! It is indeed the story of a planet abandoned, abandoned, abandoned. Does the day of ascension really mean that Jesus has gone out of this world into another world?! Would the Ascension really mean that Jesus is enthroned there in an unseen heavenly glory, enjoying the nearness of God the Father, not caring about us, the story of tears and blood any longer? Will the lamentations of sorrowful widows, the weeping of deceived spouses, the secret wailing of broken souls, reach him? While the doctor stands helpless over the cancer patient, Is He in heaven sitting in victory feast with the angels? Can we really think of Him only as a victorious warrior, Who, having fought His battle, marched in triumph to glory, Leaving the battlefield, saying, "Go on now, live as you can! I will no longer take responsibility for all the trouble you are making! Don't touch me Mary, don't hold me back. I'm leaving! Goodbye!" - Yes, this is certainly the appearance, the apparent poverty, the sadness of the fact of the Ascension. Perhaps I have exaggerated this appearance a little, but it is good sometimes to pick up the fragments of lurking, haunting thoughts, to formulate them and face them.
2) Well, despite all appearances, there is in fact every reason to see this day as a celebration. This is clear from the very words Jesus spoke to Mary here in the garden. "I will go up to my Father and your Father..." It is not that he is leaving this world behind, but that he is tying it very closely to heaven. Behold, we now have one Father. We receive back the Father from whom we have been separated, by Jesus ascending to the Father. He is going to heaven precisely to link earth to heaven forever, man to God, us to the Father, time to eternity, the Church to Himself. There the disciples stand on the Mount of Olives, looking after Jesus, who is invisible in the heavenly world, and the last thing they see of him is two pierced hands, which are stretched out blessedly above us. These hands, as documents of human suffering and sin, are carried with him into that certain heavenly world. This Jesus will never leave this earthly world behind him again. That Jesus who was born of Mary, who lay in the manger, who was here among us a body of our flesh, a blood of our blood, who rejoiced with the rejoicers at a wedding feast in Cana, who wept with the weepers at Lazarus' tomb, who knelt in the sand of the Garden of Gethsemane, who died on the cross as a condemned man: A piece of our earthly history, this document of our humanity, This Jesus ascended to heaven to the Father, This Jesus is there at the right hand of the Father, That is, at the very centre of the glory and omnipotence of God. This Jesus will never again leave this earthly world!
"I will ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." It is also implicit in this saying that the ascension does not mean separation, but even closer, more real communion. My Father and your Father, my God and your God... for a breath or so. I and you... these two contrasts are one! He and we... side by side, bound together by a binding word, speaking in unison, in complete unity... It means that the relationship between you and him on earth and you in heaven will be stronger, more intimate than it has ever been. For humans, the departure means separation; for Jesus, the ascension means an even closer communion. He does not go away somewhere far away, but brings the whole heavenly world close to Him and makes it a very concrete, tangible reality. For heaven is not somewhere in mysterious distances beyond the world of stars, but heaven is here, surrounding, carrying, permeating this visible universe with its invisible reality, its effects. So Jesus' ascension is the fulfilment of this promise: "I will be with you always, even to the end of the world!"
This is also clear from the fact that Jesus says to Mary: "Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father..." Jesus, by His resurrection, entered into a higher form of life, a heavenly form of life. Mary, on the other hand, wants to pull him back to the lower life, the earthly life. She wants to relate to Him as she used to. She thought that the kind of togetherness they had before Jesus' death had only ceased for a few days, and then it was restored. He does not understand that with the resurrection something new begins, a different, higher, spiritual fellowship, which excludes all physical contact, that is, fellowship in faith, rather than fellowship of a visible, tactile nature. To be with Jesus in faith is more than to feel him with the hands. To be with Him in faith is more than accompanying Jesus in the flesh through villages and towns - to be with Him in faith is more than sitting at a table with Him visibly. That is why Jesus says: "Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father...
This "because" shows that Jesus approves of Mary's intention never to be separated from him after this. Behold, he promises that this will be fulfilled as soon as she ascends to her Father. Until that ascension takes place, there can be no unbroken communion between Jesus and his own. Until then, it is only possible that He may appear once in a while and then disappear again, show Himself, come out of invisibility, declare His living reality, but this can only last for a time, for a time, because He has not yet ascended to the Father. When He has ascended to the Father, then it will be possible to live in inner, permanent communion with Him, then it will be that one will never have to separate, to be separated from Him. So there is no separation with the ascension, but the possibility of true, happy, uninterrupted communion! Let us rejoice then, now He is truly with us every day until the end of the world!
The ascension is not, therefore, a poverty for us, but a great enrichment. For it is with the Ascension that our faith in Jesus comes to its ultimate fulfilment. Christmas means: seeing Jesus in the manger; Good Friday: seeing Jesus on the cross; Easter: seeing Jesus over the opened tomb; Pentecost: seeing Jesus in myself, in my own heart; and Holy Thursday: seeing Jesus in heaven! Believing in Jesus lying in the manger: even the world lets me do that, it's not dangerous! Believing in Jesus hanging on the cross: the world can only smile at that: what can a dead Saviour do? Believing in a risen Jesus living in us: this may be someone's personal business, in which no one can have a say. But it is quite another thing for people to believe in a Jesus enthroned in heavenly glory, into whose pierced hands all authority in heaven and earth has been given... This has consequences for the whole world. For this Jesus stretches out those two hands of blessing to the world and says. Before this Jesus every knee shall bow once, of those in heaven, of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord...
So let us never think of Jesus in earthly terms, but in heavenly terms! Dare to believe in Him! Dare to believe greatly in His power! Let us not reduce Him to the poor level of our own possibilities and imaginations, but let us lift our eyes to Him, to the unseen world full of His power and glory. "Touch me not," He said to Mary, "for I have not yet ascended to my Father..." Touch me not, He tells us, with those earthly, petty thoughts that fall far short of my glory and power. Do not touch me with that petty fear, as if my arm were not long enough to guide history. Touch me not with the doubt that I have abandoned the ground on which the cross of Calvary once stood. Do not touch me with selfish desires and wishes that do not serve the good! Dare to believe greatly in my power! Dare to think of Me in a supra-worldly, that is, heavenly degree!
We have a far greater Christ than we can even imagine His power to be. Let us not apply our own measure to Jesus, His thoughts are not our thoughts, His ways are not our ways. As heaven is higher than earth, so His ways are our ways, and His thoughts are our thoughts! This is the very enrichment, the joy, the blessing of His ascension. It is precisely because we believe in Jesus as the heavenly Lord of this world that we should turn to Him with even more love, with more service to people, with more responsibility for life on this earth, with more trust and hope for the future - as those who know that this piece of the great universe, our earth, is His forever and for all! Let us tell him so ourselves, all of us together:
Grant, Lord Jesus, that even in this world
In this world, in this heaven
May we share in it as our possession,
To live holy with our heavenly joy.
And that this earth by good works,
With thanksgiving, with fervent reverence,
As dwelling companions of the saints,
Let us make them a feast for the heavens.
360. praise verse 6
Amen!
Date: 31 May 1962, Holy Thursday
Lesson
Lk 24,44-53