Acts 1: 1-11; Ephesians 1: 17-23; Mark 16: 15-20

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but apparently Jesus never really existed—or if He did, He’s just a copy of some other pagan god who already existed before Him.

Have you heard this claim? It’s a favorite of contemporary atheists, and you might hear them on occasion during Easter or Christmas on the History Channel, which I prefer to call the Heresy Channel when it comes to anything dealing with the Christian faith. They will often pull out examples from Pagan mythology: Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis, Dionysius. Or they might compare Jesus with other savior figures like Mithras. They point out all the similarities among their stories, and they make a very compelling case at first blush that all of these parallels imply imitation—that since one thing came after the other, the one that followed is an imitation of the other. It’s only when you peel back the layers and look at each story and it’s dissimilarities that you see that you’re being snowed. We’re being told that Osiris and Dionysius are just like Jesus, except that they were never human beings who actually existed in human history. That’s the big difference between all these Pagan gods and our Lord. None of these mythologies suggest that these gods were human beings, but that is the claim we make for Jesus, and it is a claim that no reputable historian denies.

We shouldn’t be surprised. When someone has an agenda, they are going to bend the facts to their position. The best way to counter their arguments is to assess all the facts with a clear mind and to know your scripture.

Sadly, some scripture scholars and theologians engage in the same sleight of hand. They make a great deal about the “inconsistencies” among the gospels: the fact that Matthew has a donkey and its colt, while Luke only mentions the colt. Or differences in the resurrection accounts and how Mark says that the women ran away while John says that Mary Magdalene reported to Peter and John. And they will take these small inconsistencies to argue for a big claim: that Jesus never really appeared after His death, that these accounts in the gospel are simply theological musings on a “deeper” spiritual awakening that happened in the Apostles after Christ’s death that helped them to recognize Christ in each other—that they saw Jesus embodied in the faith of the community, in the breaking of the bread. It wasn’t really a bodily presence the Apostles encountered in the gospels, in Acts, in the letters of St. Paul. It was a recognition of a common communion in Christ that they all shared by faith. They point out the discrepancies, note that the synoptic gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—all seem to come from the same source, and then conclude that the bodily resurrection and appearance of Christ to His disciples after his burial never happened. And they claim that it all follows the evidence in scripture.

This interpretation has been bandied about in the last 200 years by some Protestant scripture scholars and has even been rather popular among some 20^th century Catholic theologians who found the dogmas of the Catholic faith too restrictive for their intellectual freedom.

            The Ascension, the feast that we celebrate today, throws a bit of a wrench in the works of their claims. It underscores that Jesus dwelt on earth for a time after His death and resurrection, that He not only rose from the dead, but that He hung around to make the point about His bodily resurrection before ascending to Heaven. If we celebrate this day in all truth, then we celebrate it because Jesus rose from the dead, appeared in bodily form, and later  ascended. The Ascension makes no sense if there was no bodily resurrection.

It’s important to remember first and foremost that the gospel accounts are not merely stories or wishful thinking about our faith. They are eyewitness accounts. They are primarily historical, even if they are not history texts as we understand them in modern times. They and the New Testament letters record what the early Church witnessed and taught. Any purportedly Catholic theology that dispenses with these facts is false theology and contrary to the faith.

So the Ascension supports two facts:

–        Jesus rose from the dead bodily, albeit in a glorified body that possessed new properties: the ability to pass through locked doors, to appear and vanish at will.

–        After His resurrection, Jesus dwelt among the faithful for 40 days and continued to teach them.

Jesus’ body was not just  resuscitated but transformed. If Jesus had been merely resuscitated, He would’v been in pretty sorry shape as He would’ve still born the marks of His abuse prior to the crucifixion. There’s no suggestion that any of those marks remained, save the wounds from the nails and the spear in His side. But He ate and drank with the faithful, continued to teach them and encourage them, until He finally ascended to Heaven and promised to send the Holy Spirit.

Scriptural support for the Ascension comes primarily from the three gospels in which it’s mentioned, Mark, Luke, and John; from the first chapter of Acts; and from St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. Of these writings, the earliest is the letter of St. Paul, in which he recounts precisely what he passed on to the Corinthians:

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than 500 brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive. (1 Cor. 15:3–6).

St. Paul’s account written in the mid to late 50s leaves no question about what the Church taught in its earliest days—within 20 years of Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension. And in the same passage, St. Paul outlines why this belief is foundational: “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” If there was no bodily resurrection, we have no ground for our faith.

Paragraph 659 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church has this to say about the resurrection and Ascension:

Christ’s body was glorified at the moment of his Resurrection, as proved by the new and supernatural properties it subsequently and permanently enjoys. But during the forty days when he eats and drinks familiarly with his disciples and teaches them about the kingdom, his glory remains veiled under the appearance of ordinary humanity. Jesus’ final apparition ends with the irreversible entry of his humanity into divine glory, symbolized by the cloud and by heaven, where he is seated from that time forward at God’s right hand

That is the perpetual teaching of the Catholic Church from Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, the early Church Fathers, and affirmed by the magisterium in numerous councils.

            We Catholics are a resurrection people, and we have an amazing God—a God who loves us more than we can imagine, a God who feeds us with Himself, a God who died and rose again and promises the same to us. That message is something worth taking to the street and taking to the world.