As I prepared for this weekend, a fundamental question came to mind that I honestly hadn’t given much thought to before: “What is the Ascension of Our Lord all about”, and “Why is it important? Without answering these questions, a homily on the Feast of the Ascension would surely miss the mark.

In my research, I came upon a quote from a Catholic priest that holds the essence of the answer. He wrote, “Our humanity, body and soul, was taken by the Son into an unbreakable bond with His divinity. When Christ rose from the tomb, our humanity rose in Him. When He ascended into heaven, so also did we ascend. In Christ, our humanity now sits at the Father’s right hand. His presence there is our great promise and hope here…That hope informs our trials in this life.”

These beautifully crafted words can be restated more simply: Our Lord’s Ascension is all about hope. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says this about hope: “When God reveals himself and calls us, we cannot fully respond to the divine love by our own power. We must hope that God will give us the capacity to love him in return…Hope is the confident expectation of divine blessing…” So if the Ascension is all about hope, what do today’s readings say to us and how do they apply to our lives?

Today’s readings provide two very different stories of the apostle’s reaction to Jesus Ascension. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus tells the apostles to go into the world and baptize every creature. He tells them how to identify true believers, and then he vanishes into thin air. He is “taken up” into heaven. The apostles immediately go forth and preach the gospel everywhere.

Now, given their history, I’m not sure I buy into this immediate reaction on the part of the apostles. Remember who they are; Peter, who denied even knowing Christ three times; Matthew, the reformed tax collector; James & John, whose mother asked for favored status for them in the kingdom of heaven; and Thomas, who wouldn’t even believe that Jesus was raised from the dead unless he could put his hand into Jesus side. These don’t sound like people who are going to jump into action at the mere words of Jesus, even the resurrected Jesus. I personally think the story from Acts is a closer picture of how they would have responded.

In Acts Jesus tells them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the “promise of the Father”, the Holy Spirit. Being told to “stay put” was probably a relief. They could not have known what Jesus meant by “the promise of the Father”, but at least they weren’t being told to rush headlong off into the world. Whatever “event” awaited them was at least a few days away; for now, they didn’t have to do anything but wait.

Then Jesus told them that they would be His witnesses “to the ends of the earth.” That must have caused some head scratching among the apostles. What did Jesus mean by this? But before they could ask, Jesus was “lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight.”

Now, what were they supposed to do? They were incredulous as they stood there looking up at the sky. And then two men in white, probably angels, asked them why they were standing there looking at the sky. “This Jesus had “been taken up from them into heaven.” And where did that leave the apostles?

There is an adage that describes where the apostles probably felt they were: they were stuck between a rock and a hard place! Jesus came and called them to follow Him; they did, and then he was taken away from them and crucified. Three days later he was raised from the dead, he appeared to them and blessed them with His peace. And now he left them again, this time in a cloud that took him up into the sky. They must have felt abandoned, confused and as if they had no place to go and no one to turn to. They knew what Jesus told them to do, but they must have felt that they were in an impossible situation.

So what does this have to do with us? Why is this important to us? Well, think about the times when you’ve been where the apostles found themselves in today’s readings. Maybe, at this very moment, you feel like you are the one between a rock and a hard place. If you’ve lost your job, suffered through a divorce, lost your house or experienced a serious illness, you probably have feelings of anxiety and doubt. You may feel that you are the one stuck in an impossible situation.

But when these things happen, we cannot give in to despair. A commentary on the Catechism, referring to the 9/11 attacks said, “We need to turn to God and to one another in hope. Hope assures us that, with God’s grace, we will see our way through what now seems such a daunting challenge. For believers, hope is not a matter of optimism, but a source of strength and action in demanding times.” The situation they referred to is different, but our response to the challenges we face must be the same. We must turn in hope and in faith to God and to one another, confident that we can and will make it through difficult times.

The Ascension is an essential part of the “love story” between God and humanity. What the apostles learned after the Ascension, at Pentecost, was that God’s plans for us are larger and often very different from the plans we may have for ourselves. Next weekend, we will recall how the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles, and gave them a life changing direction that transformed them from hiding in a locked room to becoming the witnesses that Jesus said they would become. How does that happen to them and how does it happen to us?

It happens when we open our minds and hearts to accept God’s plan for our lives. God loves each one of us completely and beyond our wildest imagination. He wants to give us what is best for us. That doesn’t mean we’ll get the promotions, never get sick, win the Lottery or marry the first person we fall madly in love with. Maybe we’ll do all those things, but maybe we won’t do any of them. But through it all God will provide us with what we need, in spit of our preconceived notions of what that means.

When we confront the times of trial in our lives, we must remind ourselves of the Ascension. We have to remember that Jesus, our brother in His humanity, now sits at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us. That doesn’t mean the road will always be smooth. The personal struggles, the ups and downs, the economic highs and lows are all a part of life. But when we experience the trials of our lives, we must turn to God with the hope that the Ascension gives us. We must look away from thoughts of despair and realize that God is active in our lives even, and perhaps especially in the difficult times. The God that loves beyond all measure will never leave us between a rock and a hard place.