“For the drama of the crucified and resurrected Lord, the ascension is an indispensable movement of God’s economy of redemption. “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear” (Acts 2:33–34). The ascension of Jesus is the continuation of the resurrection drama: Jesus resurrected and assuming life as the definitive exalted Lord of life. For Christology, the ascension of the resurrected and crucified Messiah is a culmination of Jesus’ salvific historical acts and sending of the Holy Spirit. As the sender of the Spirit and the sitting Lord, he is the glorious Son who is the vere homo and promised telos for all humanity (Matt. 25:31–45). He ascends to the Father’s plenitude to give life, joy, and hope to humanity (Luke 24:52–53; Eph. 6:9; Col. 4:1).[105] The event is historical and transcendent, a movement of the glorious Jesus into the royal silent presence of the Father. Jesus is sedet ad dexteram Patris, participating in sovereignty given by the Father (Matt. 28:18; cf. Ps. 110:1). In this movement, he “puts the throne of his glory in the very field of history’s struggles to accompany the most threatened of humanity.”[106] God the Father both raises and enthrones Jesus. The triumph achieved through the Son’s self-giving on the cross and rising from the dead in the Spirit brings together the cosmic and historical aspects of salvation. He has entered the celestial sanctuary as the royal priest of all. “He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’” (Rev. 21:5).
Hence, Jesus ascends for our salvation. The ascension is not the only temporal indicator of the end of Jesus’ work and earthly life and a revealing of his glory; the ascension is also a necessity of the salvation economy: “Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7).[107] This event completes a drama of divine action (Mark 14:62). In holy gaze at the pouring out of the sanctifier Spirit, the Son of Man and the Father rest in their mutual glory, royal dialogue, and eschatological judgment. The action here is monumental: the living one who descended to become a slave to all—sitting with sinners, the poor, and the despised—now ascends and sits with the Father as the exalted Lord of all.
Jesus ascends in order to be present, keeping his promise of uninterrupted communion with his community. Christ’s enduring presence is communicated by and through the Spirit. The presence of the Spirit is a gift from Christ, the one sent to be counselor and to apply the benefits of the work of salvation. In this communicative activity, the Spirit is revealed as a Trinitarian person in the salvific mission. The Spirit communicates the enduring presence of Jesus. This is the presence of Jesus in his messianic history, his life as autobasileia that the disciples are commissioned to proclaim and participate in. For this reason, the identity of the Spirit is parsed in Trinitarian mode with the genitive construction: he is both the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of God the Father. The kairos for the graceful pneumatic flourishing of his people, the ecclesia, has now arrived, inaugurating a period of lifelong holy hope for the return of the Lord.
Painting: Group of Apostles from the Ascension of Christ, c.1506 (coloured inks, brown wash) by Andrea Mantegna
