Homily for May 24, 2009

Father Tom’s Homily
Ascension Sunday
May 24, 2009

For generations after the Ascension, the Christian community of Jerusalem used the upper room in the southwestern corner of the old walled city as their “parish church.”
They also held in special reverence three caves in the area around Jerusalem. These caves held the memory of the birth, death/resurrection, and ascension of Jesus.

There was the cave at Bethlehem, about six miles south of the old city where Jesus was born.
There was also the cave, a rock-cut tomb, where Jesus was buried and rose from death. This was just outside of the city gate heading northwest out of the city of Jerusalem.

The third holy cave was high on the Mount of Olives to the east overlooking the city. The early Christians believed that Jesus met with his disciples often in this cave where he taught them both before and after the resurrection.
And that he ascended into glory from this location.

Nothing much was done to construct significant structures at these sites because in the early centuries the Christians were a persecuted minority. Building magnificent shrines and churches was not a priority of the followers of the humble Messiah.

But when Constantine declared Christianity to be one of the official religions of his empire in 313, many things changed for the Christian community.
For one thing, at the urging of his mother, Queen Helena, Constantine initiated a huge building program throughout the Holy Land. In the 320’s, under the supervision of Queen Helena, this building program focused on the three caves linked to the key mysteries of the Christian faith.

The Church of the Nativity was built over the cave in Bethlehem. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built over the tomb-cave in Jerusalem. And the Church of the Ascension was built over the cave on the Mount of Olives.
On this Feast of the Ascension, we will concentrate of the Ascension Church.

About 70 years after Constantine’s construction, a larger church commemorating the Ascension was built on the very top of the Mount of Olives (a short distance from the cave church) by a member of the imperial family.
This Church of the Ascension, as well as the old one over the cave, was destroyed by the Persians in 614. About 500 years later the Crusaders rebuilt new churches over both locations.

When the Muslim army conquered the crusaders in 1198, the Church of the Ascension at the top of the Mount of Olives was turned into the Mosque of the Ascension.
Even though the Ascension is not mentioned in the Koran, Muslims believe that Jesus ascended into heaven.

The mosque included a few alterations. An important one was whereas the Church of the Ascension was open to the sky, the Muslims build a roof over the structure.
Another was a slight change in a prominent feature of the church. The Crusaders carved foot prints in a stone which was in the middle of the round church. These represented the very spot where Jesus stood as he began his ascension.
The right foot print is still in the Mosque of the Ascension, the left was taken to the Al Aksa Mosque built on the Temple Mount. The Al Aksa Mosque is the second most important mosque in Islam.
The Muslims also added a mihrab in their Mosque of the Ascension. This is a niche in the wall pointing the worshippers in the direction of Mecca. Muslims pray facing Mecca five times a day.

Back in 1997, during my three-month sabbatical in Jerusalem, I visited the Mosque of the Ascension. I walked on the steep road to the top of the Mount of Olives.
I went in a heavy drizzle because it was my last few days in Jerusalem and I had not yet visited the shrine of the Ascension. I was alone because nobody else in his right mind would make this trip in the rain. There were only two other persons visiting the mosque when I was there.
I was surprised that it is a very humble mosque. It has no adornments except that at the center of a this circular mosque there is the stone with the foot print.
I surmise that it is more a museum than a place where worshippers gather to pray. It’s a heck of walk up a single lane dirt road to the top of a steep hill to pray five times each day.

Further down the Mount of Olives is the cave over which the original Church of the Ascension had been built. Another church has built there, called the Pater Noster Church, because this is the place where Jesus taught his disciples the Our Father.

Today’s first reading was from Luke’s Acts of the Apostles.
Luke’s gospel ends with Jesus’ ascension. It is the first thing he speaks of in the Acts of the Apostles. It is the one event that overlaps Luke’s two works.

Luke wrote about Jesus’ ascension at a time when Roman emperors were claiming divine power. He is presenting Jesus as The Exalted One, more powerful than any earthly king or emperor.
The Ascension is about the exaltation of Jesus.

The exaltation of Jesus:
This Jesus – on the run as an infant on the government’s most wanted list.
This Jesus – a common laborer supporting his mom in the dumpy little town of Nazareth.
This Jesus – a nobody from nowhere

This Jesus – a poor itinerant preacher, who had nowhere to lay his head.
He and his small band of followers slept out in the fields, in caves,
or begged for space in strangers’ barns when it rained.
This Jesus – who spoke of non-violence to people suffering under the oppressive
occupation of the Roman army.
Many considered him a crazy preacher whose audience were mostly peasants.

This Jesus – condemned by religious leaders to be a heretic,
Held in suspicion by government leaders to be a rabble rouser.
This Jesus – an outsider who shared food and stories with street people, tax collectors, and prostitutes. Obviously a ridiculous, scandalous messiah.

This Jesus – nailed naked to a cross on a hilloutside the city gate for passersby to gawk at
and laughed at.
This Jesus – whose clothes were taken by one of his executioners by the throw of the dice.
He had nothing left, except a handful of friends who stood at a distance and helplessly watched him die.
This Jesus – Today he is exalted to the high heavens. He is the Lord of all, the one person
who can show us the face of God. He is the Son of God.

Today’s feast is also the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise given to his disciples at their last meeting before his death. In John’s gospel Jesus made this promise at the Last Supper. “I am going away to prepare a place for you. And then I shall come back to take you with me. So that where I am you also may be.”
Today’s feast tells of Jesus going ahead to prepare a place for us in the Father’s house.
We are the sons and daughters heading to our only true home which is in our Father’s house. Lest we falter or lose our way, Jesus has returned to accompany us.
The Ascension is a celebration of hope. Where Jesus has gone we hope to follow.