By seating his human nature at the right hand of the Father, Jesus put the humanity we share with him up there.

Thursday, 5/29/14

I don’t think we are supposed to believe that Jesus, was taken up bodily through the clouds, arriving at heaven. I imagine he merely staged that ascension to fit the thinking of the Apostles who imagined God’s heaven to be about fifty miles above the earth.

As Christians, we believe in the resurrection of our bodies, but they will be glorified bodies with no need for lodgings, or nourishment. They will not be composed of billions of cells, the way our earthy bodies are or the way the earthly body of Jesus was before his death.

After his resurrection, he appeared to the Apostles to comfort them, but again, I’d say he merely staged those appearances. After meeting with the Apostles, his glorified body slipped unseen through closed doors.

Instead of just viewing the Ascension as the glorious finale to Our Lord’s time on earth, we should look at what it means for us. In today’s second reading St. Paul assured the Christians at Ephesus that they had at work in them the same power which brought Jesus to the right hand of God.

More than that, in seeing the Ascension in relationship to us, we are brought to recognize Jesus as the God-chosen representative of all humanity. By his taking humanity to the right hand of the Father, he has ennobled the human nature we share with him.