Matthew 28: 16-20, The Solemnity of the Ascencion of the Lord

Once upon a time, true story, there was a very dutiful mom who, with her husband, raised their children in the best way they could: put them through a good school, instilled faith in them, taught them the ropes of life, coached them through their problems. All grown up, her strongest-willed daughter fell in love with a separated man who was still lawfully married to his estranged wife. With due diligence, mom begged daughter to please, please not get into this mess—this had no happily-ever-after ending. Over several months, they argued, quarrelled, made up, and then back again until daughter decided to leave home to shack up with the guy. “Well,” the mother said with excruciating resignation, “we did teach our children to be true to their feelings and who they are, and to not be afraid to make their own decisions.” But she never stopped messaging her daughter, inviting her over for Sunday lunch, birthdays, Christmas—even when she received no reply. “I’m going to keep texting her; kukumustahin ko siya kahit no reply”—her way of reassuring her daughter that the door would be kept open. And, “when things fall apart,” the mom swore, “I will be there for her.” Meanwhile, the mom knew she had to disappear from her daughter’s life, if not only physically.

Sisters and brothers, I still struggle to understand why Jesus had to disappear from the earth, too, to go back to the father. I know, theologically, that the ascension was necessary so that Jesus can show that (a) glorious life awaits us all beyond this life, and (b) that he will prepare a dwelling for us over there, like he promised his friends. Still, the bigger part of me says Jesus could have stayed here with us for good—body and soul. After all, an untimely crucifixion cut short his mission. So, upon rising from the dead, he could have resumed fixing humanity: healing, teaching, exorcising. Who knows, he might have ended up in the Philippines . . . to expel the demons from the Senate, especially those who use the Lord’s words in vain. Because, really, sisters and brothers, don’t you think there’d have been less insanity in the world today if our risen earthly Jesus had a direct hand in fixing our mess? After all, he himself said, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” And, boy, do we need that power these days.

But, then, if Jesus physically stayed around, he would have turned into a crutch for his friends. They’d always run to him to solve their problems, answer their questions, referee their quarrels, and take over when their powers conked out. They’d always be outsourcing their conscience; in other words, outsourcing their courage, too. That would no longer be discipleship, then. That would be dependence. But, like the mom in my story, Jesus did not condition his friends for helplessness without him. His ascension, his disappearing from them, was entrustment, not abandonment.

When her daughter packed up and left, the mother in my story could only hope that her daughter would have internalized all the things she had lovingly taught her. For now, that was all she could do as a mom. And, thankfully, that’s what absence also does, sisters and brothers: when we disappear from people we love, what they treasured most in our presence often becomes clearer in our absence. Absence not only makes the heart grow fonder, as we say; it also has a way of deepening the love and the lessons that we shared with our children and friends while we were still around to hold their hand, to listen—even to argue and fight with them. Whether by force of distance or by death, we remain in people we love, even when we disappear—mysteriously, and ironically enough—we stay in their conscious and subconscious. We speak in their inner dialogues. We inhabit their memories. In other words, when we externally disappear, we become internal to our beloved. So, when time and space no longer tethered Jesus, he could now dwell in each friend all the time and shepherd all of them from within.

After Jesus ascended into the clouds, his disciples no longer needed to always look around for his approval. So their sense of creativity burst forth alongside their newfound courage. Remember that Christianity was an underground movement for over three hundred years, punishable by death. So, Jesus’s friends learned to improvise without him: improvise their prayer meetings; innovate Christian gatherings; maneuver stealthily past enemy lines—all under Jewish and Roman radar. Result? 2.6 billion of us Christians today—and growing. Not bad for a mission impossible and for creativity.

So when I despair over Jesus’s physical absence, especially from our country’s insanity today, I take to heart these three other reasons why his ascension was necessary: (a) because Jesus has blessed us enough to carry on his ministry without him being our crutch; (b) because what we loved and learned in his presence becomes clearer and deeper in his absence; and (c) because our creativity gets a boost when we don’t merely walk in Jesus’s footsteps, but dare to blaze new trails, with his spirit burning within us. So Jesus’s ascension is his gift to us rather than our loss of him.

After about a difficult year, the mother in my story opened the door to her crying daughter, whom she cradled back in her arms. Her daughter was grateful that her mom never really disappeared from her life. Same thing, and more so, with Jesus and us, sisters and brothers. The Lord dwells within us now. He never stops reaching for our innermost humanity. His absence is, really, the most persistent form of his presence. When it’s our time to disappear from this earth and ascend, we will come face-to-face, not with a stranger, but with someone who never, for a single moment, stopped waiting, stopped hoping, and stopped loving us. Sisters and brothers, to disappear from people we love, if only externally and never in spirit, might just be one of the surest ways for them to ascend.