Ascension A.  May 4, 2008. Our Lady of Grace 7:30, 11:30, 6PM.  Acts 1: 1-11.  Ephesians 1: 17-23.  Matthew 28: 16-20.

There was a time when most people thought that the earth was flat.  They were sure that anyone who was dim-witted enough to sail from Europe toward what we now know as North and South America would fall off the edge of a flat world.  Christopher Columbus thought that you could get to the rich trading lands of Asia by sailing west across the Atlantic Ocean.   What was Columbus thinking as he sailed on and on over thousands of miles of water in a direction that no one he knew had dared travel before? Columbus didn’t go on the adventure that led to the discovery of the New World alone. Columbus was backed by the King and Queen of Spain, two of the richest and most powerful people in the world.

In 1990 Astronaut Bob Cabana made his first trip into space on the space craft Discovery.  He is a graduate of Minneapolis Washburn High School and grew up in Minneapolis.  This week he is being inducted in the Astronaut Hall of Fame at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.  I heard him talk about watching the earth sink into the distance as his space craft climbed into the dark ocean of space.  He said that we don’t know where we are going to live in space and who we are going to meet there.  Yet, space is the new frontier that Bob Cabana entered with the support of people of the Untied States.

Jesus came to us on a great adventure and mission from God.  He came to live and die and rise again to save people of every race, country and century.  On this Ascension feast we celebrate the fact that Jesus completed his mission.  Jesus returns to heaven from his mission on earth as the angels sing his praises and he is inducted into the eternal hall of fame.

The successful completion of the mission of Jesus marks the beginning of the mission of his disciple and the great global mission adventure of the Church that Jesus founded.

Jesus said, “‘All power in heaven and earth has been given to me.  Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.  And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.  You will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth’.  When he had said this…he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight.”

What did the first followers of Jesus see as they watched Jesus ascend into heaven?  They saw that they were poor, uneducated, unimportant men and women. They saw that most of their own people did not believe in Jesus and the message that he shared with them.  They saw that Rome was a foreign power very hostile to the moral values and the belief in one God that Jesus had taught them. Rome was their enemy.  Their own people were often against them.  They were poor and unimportant.  They stood and looked out at a sea as vast and stormy as the Atlantic Ocean and as dark and unknown as the depths of space.  There was no government on their side.  They were alone.  Yet they set out on the greatest adventure and mission that has ever faced the human race.  Jesus sent them to change the mind and heart of every race and nation, making them the one family of God.

A few unimportant men and woman stood on a lonely mountain in Galilee almost 2000 years ago.  It is a wonder that they didn’t just laugh or cry at the impossible mission Jesus had given them.  Instead they set out on the great missionary adventure of the Church.  There are over six billion human beings in the world today.  Over a billion of the people in the world – a little over 17% -are Catholic Christians.  When Orthodox and Protestant Christians are added to this number a little over 2 billion people or one third of the people in the world are Christian.  Because of the role that Christianity has had in the western world the influence of Christianity on the total human race is even greater than the numbers indicate.   Even when we remember that most of the human race has not accepted the message and role of Jesus and that many who call themselves Christians do not live that way, still a few more than 12 people who witnessed the Ascension of Jesus have had immense influence on the human race.

Every age has had problems in proclaiming the message of Christ.  The first Christians had to deal with pagan immorality and worship of false gods.  Today we wrestle with the secularization of society and materialism as our false god.  Yet the mission of Christ to the human race goes on.  Jesus said, “Go, make disciples of all nations... and behold I am with you always until the end of the age.”  Jesus promised us success in our mission to the world.  Success is something that only God can measure and success often comes in ways that surprise us.  The first disciples could not have imagined that their preaching would not only convert the Roman Empire but that the Church of Christ under the leadership of the pope would be the authority in Rome 15 hundred years after the fall of the Empire in the city of Rome.

The feast of the Ascension reminds us that every one of us has a mission.  When we lose our mission and the adventure of being alive we begin to die.  A Catholic Church that no longer reaches out to all people with a message of hope and salvation is a church that is preparing to die.  Young people who no longer see life is an adventure and their future as a mission to the world committed to them by God stand on the edge of stagnation and purposeless wandering.  Old people who no longer see a reason for living and a purpose for giving to others are in fact looking into the face of death. The great commission of Jesus to his first disciples and the presence of the Holy Spirit promised by Jesus empower us to live our God given mission even when the ocean is rough and unknown and the vastness of space scares us.  For the courage of the first disciples who lived the mission of Jesus, and for the challenge of our mission today we give God thanks and praise.