I go to Prepare a Place for You: Ascension and the Imagery of Jewish Marriage (Reprise)

So much of what Jesus says about the event we call "Ascension" is meant to remind us of the Jewish theology of marriage. It is meant to remind us that the Church, those called and sent in the name of Jesus, is the Bride of Christ --- both betrothed and awaiting the consummation of this marriage. The Gospel passage from 16 John prepares the disciples for Jesus' "leaving" and the Church wants us to hear it now in terms of the Ascension rather than the crucifixion. Thus, it focuses on the "in-between" time of grief-at-separation, waiting, and bittersweet joy.

Thus too, especially with its imagery of labor and childbirth, it affirms that though Jesus must leave to prepare a place for us, the grief of his "leaving" (really a new kind of presence) will one day turn to unalloyed joy because with and in Christ something new is being brought to birth both in our own lives and in the very life of God. It is an unprecedented reality, an entirely New Life and too, a source of a joy which no one can take from us. Just as the bridegroom remains a real but bittersweet presence and promise in the life of his betrothed, so Jesus' presence in our own lives is a source of now-alloyed and bittersweet joy, both real and unmistakable but also not what it will be when the whole of creation reaches its fulfillment and the marriage between Christ and his Bride is consummated. The union of this consummation is thus the cosmic union of God-made all in all.

The following post reflects on another Johannine text, also preparing us for the Ascension. I wanted to reprise it here because the Gospel texts this week all seek to remind us of the unadulterated joy of Easter and the Parousia (the second-coming and fulfillment) as they prepare us for the bittersweet joy of the in-between time of Ascension and especially because they do so using the imagery of Jewish marriage. This Friday's childbirth imagery in John 16 presupposes and requires this be fresh in our minds.

The Two Stages of Jewish Marriage

The central image Jesus uses in [speaking of his leaving and eventual return] is that of marriage. His disciples are supposed to hear him speaking of the entire process of man and wife becoming one, of a union which represents that between God and mankind (and indeed, all of creation) which is so close that the two cannot be prised apart or even seen as entirely distinguishable realities. Remember that in Jewish marriages there were two steps: 1) the betrothal which was really marriage and which could only be ended by a divorce, and 2) the taking home and consummation stage in this marriage. After the bridegroom travels to his bride's home and the two are betrothed, the bridegroom returns home to build a place for his new bride in his family's home. It is always meant to be a better place than she had before. When this is finished (about a year later) the bridegroom travels back to his bride and with great ceremony (lighted lamps, accompanying friends, etc) brings her back to her new home where the marriage is consummated.

Descent and the Mediation of God's Reconciling Love:

This image of the dual stages in Jewish marriage is an appropriate metaphor of what is accomplished in the two "stages" in salvation history referred to as descent and ascent. When we think of Jesus as mediator or revealer --- or even as Bridegroom --- we are looking at a theology of salvation (soteriology)  in which God first goes out of himself in search of a counterpart. This God  'empties himself' of divine prerogatives --- not least that of remaining in solitary omnipotent splendor --- and in a continuing act of self-emptying creates the cosmos still in search of that counterpart. For this reason the entire process is known as one of descent or kenosis. Over eons of time and through many intermediaries (including prophets, the Law, and several covenants) he continues to go out of himself to summon the "other" into existence, and eventually chooses a People who will reveal  him (that is, make him known and real) to the nations. Finally and definitively in Jesus he is enabled to turn a human face to his chosen People. As God has done in partial and fragmentary ways before, in Christ as Mediator he reveals himself definitively as a jealous and fierce lover, one who will allow nothing, not even sin and godless death (which he actually takes into himself!)** to separate him from his beloved or prevent him from bringing her home with him when the time comes.

Ascension and the Mediation of God's Reconciling Love:

With Jesus' ascension we are confronted with another dimension of Christ's role as mediator; we celebrate the return of the Bridegroom to his father's house --- that is to the very life of God. He goes there to prepare a place for us. As in the Jewish marriage practice, that Divine "household" (that Divine life) will change in a definitive way with the return of the Son (who has also changed and is now an embodied human being who has experienced death, etc.) just as the Son's coming into the world changed it in a definitive way. God is not yet all in all (that comes later) but in Christ humanity has both assumed and been promised a place in God's own life. As my major theology professor used to say to us, "God has taken death into himself and has not been destroyed by it." That is what heaven is all about, active participation and sharing by that which is other than God in the very life of God. Heaven is not like a huge sports arena where everyone who manages to get a ticket stares at the Jumbo Tron (God) and possibly plays harps or sing psalms to keep from getting too bored. With the Christ Event God changes the world and reconciles it to himself, but with that same event the very life of God himself is changed as well. The ascension signals this significant change as embodied humanity and all of human experience becomes a part of the life of the transcendent God who is eternal and incorporeal. Some "gods" would be destroyed by this, but not the God of Jesus Christ!

Summary

Mediation (or revelation) occurs in two directions in Christ. Christ IS the gateway between heaven and earth, the "place" where these two realities meet and kiss, the new Temple where sacred and profane come together and are transfigured into a single reality. Jesus as mediator implicates God into our world and all of its moments and moods up to and including sin and godless death. But Jesus as mediator also allows human life, and eventually all of creation to be implicated in and assume a place in God's own life. When this double movement comes to its conclusion, when it is accomplished in fullness and Jesus' commission to reconciliation is entirely accomplished, when, that is, the Bridegroom comes forth once again to finally bring his bride home for the consummation of their marriage, there will be a new heaven and earth where God is all in all; in this parousia both God and creation achieve the will of God together as it was always meant to be.
_______________
** Note: the Scriptures recognize two forms of death. The first is a kind of natural perishing. The second is linked to sin and to the idea that if we choose to live without God we choose to die without him. It is the consequence of sin. This second kind is called variously, sinful death, godless death, eternal death or the second death. This is the death Jesus "takes on" in taking on the reality and consequences of human sinfulness; it is the death he dies while (in his own sinlessness) remaining entirely vulnerable and open to God. It is the death his obedience (openness) allows God to penetrate and transform with his presence.

The resurrection is the event symbolizing the defeat of this death and the first sign that all death will one day fall to the life and love of God. Ascension is the event symbolizing God taking humanity into his own "house", his own life in Christ. We live in hope for the day the promise of Ascension will be true for the whole of God's creation, the day when God will be all in all.

Why is Star Trek Easier to Imagine than the Ascension? (Reprise)

[[ Hi Sister Laurel, in your post on the Ascension you said that it was difficult for us to believe that Jesus was raised bodily into "heaven". You suggested it might be easier to imagine the Star Trek story as true instead. I wondered why you said that. Thank you.]]

I appreciate your question. Thanks. We humans tend to draw distinct lines between the spiritual and the material and often we rule out any idea that has the two interpenetrating the other or being related in paradoxical ways. We simplify things in other ways as well. For instance, do you remember when the Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin first orbited earth and made a pronouncement that he had now been to space, had looked and looked for God and did not find him? The notion that God's relation to the cosmos was other than as a visible (and material) being among other material beings present in "the heavens" was completely beyond this man's ideology or imagination. The idea of God as Being itself, being (not A being) that grounded and was the source of all existence while transcending it all was simply too big an idea for this Cosmonaut. Imagine what he would have done with the notion that everything that once existed, now exists, or is on its way to existing, does or will do so within the very life of God! (Gagarin is now said never to have affirmed this; instead, Soviet authorities did and used his flight to do so.)

Another example might be better. When I was young (grade school), I went to a Christian Scientist Church and Sunday School. There, every Sunday we recited what was called, "The Scientific Statement of Being". It was a bit of neo-Platonic "dogma" written by Mary Baker Eddy. It was the heart of the faith: [[There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-All. Spirit is immortal truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is his image and likeness. Therefore, man is not material; he is spiritual.]] By the time I was seven or eight I was questioning what it meant to say matter is unreal (or, more often, how could I be asked to deny the truth of matter's reality). Imagine what it was like to fall off your bike and tell yourself the blood and pain was "unreal" --- only Spirit is real. 

Donna Korba, IHM

The answers never satisfied, but I think you get the point. The human mind has always had difficulty not drawing a distinction between the material and the Spiritual, even to asserting the two things are antithetical --- even to the extent of denying either matter or spirit actually exists at all.  (Christian Science said matter was unreal, not just in the Platonic sense of being less real than the ideal, but in the sense of asserting that materiality is a delusion; on the other hand, contemporary science often says anything except matter is unreal.) An incarnate God, or a God who would make room within his very life for embodied existence like ours (in whatever form that embodiment occurs) would be anathema and literally inconceivable to either of these! So yes, we often suspend disbelief in reading science fiction or fantasy literature in order to enter deeply into the story. But what is also true is that we need to learn to suspend disbelief in intelligent ways in order to appreciate the Mystery of God and the cosmos; we need to do this in order to enter deeply into this great theodrama. Star Trek's stories may seem easier to believe than stories of the Ascension because the Mystery we call God is greater than anything we can create or even imagine ourselves.

One last point. Early on in my studies of theology (probably during my BA work), my major professor answered the question, "What do I do if I cannot believe in God?" His answer was, "I would encourage you to act as though it (God's existence) is true and see what happens." My own objection at the time was that that would be encouraging people to engage in pretense, not real faith, and John Dwyer responded further, " Perhaps it seems like that superficially, but what would really be happening is that one would be opening oneself [or remaining open] to allow those things that God alone can do." Another way of saying this is to affirm, one would thus be refusing to close oneself to the Holy Spirit. Once one allowed or embraced this openness, one would then compare the differences in one's life before such an openness and afterward. I didn't find John Dwyer's initial answer much more convincing than I found the Christian Science answer re: matter's unreality when I was 8 or 9 yo, but I also mistakenly thought my faith was relatively strong and sufficient. 

I now know that learning to trust (and to be open to Mystery) in the way John described is both more difficult and more intelligent than any cynical skepticism scientific materialism offers us today. And one grows in faith (thanks be to God)! I have experienced things in my life which God alone could do, and I recognize the wisdom (and the humility!!) of John Dwyer's advice to students believing they were atheists or that faith was naive, namely, that they suspend their disbelief, open themselves to new ways of seeing, and see what happens. Of course, this specific form of suspension of disbelief would result in a vocation to commitment to a world itself called to be something ever greater than even the limitations of science can imagine. What is often difficult for us is understanding that this specific suspension of disbelief is more profoundly wise than science itself can know, or our often-earth-bound imaginations can create.

 Authentic faith (which, again, is not the same as naive credulity) is something different, and in some ways, both more challenging and compelling than the more superficial suspension of disbelief we adopt when we read science fiction or fantasy literature. The essential difference, I think, is that the first type of suspension of disbelief is a form of chosen naivete adopted temporarily for the sake of recreation and enjoyment; it allows us a vacation from reality, while exercising imagination in the service of creativity. This certainly enlivens us. The second type of suspension of disbelief, that of faith, while also exercising imagination in the same service, requires more than our imagination. It is neither naive nor credulous and requires the whole of ourselves in a more direct commitment to enlivening others; as a result, faith opens us to a more intense and extensive commitment to reality itself and is simply more difficult.

Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary: Heaven is not only a Spiritual Reality!!

During this Summer, the Scripture class I do for St P's has been reading NT Wright's Surprised by Hope. Today we began chapter 7 which begins with a discussion of the Ascension and especially, the importance of believing the ascension of Jesus is a separate event from his resurrection. One of the things Wright wants to get across is that with Jesus' ascension, humanity (embodied, glorified humanity) assumes a place in the Divine "space" or life. If there was no ascension or if ascension and resurrection are collapsed into a single event, among other problems, we might be able to think of heaven as a purely spiritual reality for disembodied human beings, but in light of Jesus' ascension, we must affirm that heaven looks a lot different than most of us were taught and that is a pretty big surprise for many! It is a place where God takes embodied and glorified humanity into his own life or "space", another step towards the day when God will dwell with us in a new heaven and a new earth where God is all in all.

Wright says: [[The idea of the human Jesus now being in heaven, in his thoroughly embodied risen state, comes as a shock to many people, including many Christians. Sometimes this is because many people think Jesus, having been divine, stopped being divine and became human for a while, stopped being human and went back to being divine. . . More often it's because our culture is so used to the Platonic idea that heaven is by definition a place of "spiritual," nonmaterial reality so that the idea of a solid body being not only present but also thoroughly at home there seems like a category mistake. The ascension invites us to rethink all this; after all, why did we suppose we knew what heaven was? . . Part of Christian belief is to find out what's true about Jesus and let that challenge our culture. This applies in particular to the idea of Jesus being in charge not only in heaven but also on earth, not only in some ultimate future but also in the present.]]

I had prepared this chapter earlier in the week and that included rereading Chapter 6 in preparation, which refers to a number of Scriptural references and images dealing with what God wills for the world, namely, that one day heaven and earth would become one realm where God is all in all. We humans will have glorified bodies, just as Jesus does now, and the whole Cosmos will be recreated with Jesus as the first fruits of this new life. I was not, however thinking of today's Feast or the importance of a theology of Mary's bodily assumption. However, when I prepared for today's Feast it became clear that this dogma supports and underscores the early Church's conviction that heaven is not about disembodied beings and an entirely spiritual reality. It is about embodied glorified persons who have assumed a place in the very life or "space" of God and are both absent from us and our world as it is and also present to and for us in a new way!

This is a new way of thinking about Mary's assumption for me --- though it certainly seems pretty obvious now. I love that it underscores this "new" (and very early Christian) way of conceiving heaven and the future of the cosmos. I also appreciate how getting the ascension right rules out any misguided attempts to make of Mary a mediatrix even as it allows her to be honored appropriately. This is also a point Wright makes as he discusses the consequences of getting the ascension right.** It was also an incredibly timely Feast for me because of recent encounters I have had with Gnosticism and those who are seemingly allergic to the goodness and sanctity of the material and spatio-temporal world. I am posting this not only because I am spending time on this theology presently, but also because I wanted to celebrate this aspect of today's solemnity as a gift of God I had simply not expected.

** Wright's work here is dependent on Douglas Farrow's,  Ascension and Ecclesia, On the Significance of the Doctrine of the Ascension for Ecclesiology and Christian Cosmology. (Cf, especially pp152ff)

Why is Star Trek Easier to Imagine than the Ascension? (Reprise)

[[ Hi Sister Laurel, in your post on the Ascension you said that it was difficult for us to believe that Jesus was raised bodily into "heaven". You suggested it might be easier to imagine the Star Trek story as true instead. I wondered why you said that. Thank you.]]

I appreciate your question. Thanks. We humans tend to draw distinct lines between the spiritual and the material and often we rule out any idea that has the two interpenetrating the other or being related in paradoxical ways. We simplify things in other ways as well. For instance, do you remember when the Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin first orbited earth and made a pronouncement that he had now been to space, had looked and looked for God and did not find him? The notion that God's relation to the cosmos was other than as a visible (and material) being among other material beings present in "the heavens" was completely beyond this man's ideology or imagination. The idea of God as Being itself, a being that grounded and was the source of all existence while transcending it all was simply too big an idea for this Cosmonaut. Imagine what he would have done with the notion that everything that exists now exists or is on its way to existing within the very life of God! (Gagarin is now said never to have affirmed this; instead Soviet authorities did and used his flight to do so.)

Another example might be better. When I was young, I went to a Christian Scientist Church and Sunday School. There, every Sunday we recited what was called, "The Scientific Statement of Being". It was a bit of neo-Platonic "dogma" written by Mary Baker Eddy. It was the heart of the faith: [[There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-All. Spirit is immortal truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is his image and likeness. Therefore, man is not material; he is spiritual.]] By the time I was seven or eight I was questioning what it meant to say matter is unreal (or, more often, how could I be asked to deny the truth of matter's reality). Imagine what it was like to fall off your bike and tell yourself the blood and pain was "unreal" --- only Spirit is real. 

Donna Korba, IHM

The answers never satisfied, but I think you get the point. The human mind has always had difficulty not drawing a distinction between the material and the Spiritual even to asserting the two things are antithetical --- even to the extent of denying either matter or spirit actually exists at all.  (Christian Science said matter was unreal, not just in the Platonic sense of being less real than the ideal, but in the sense of asserting that materiality is delusional; on the other hand, contemporary science often says anything except matter is unreal.) An incarnate God, or a God who would make room within his very life for embodied existence like ours (in whatever form that embodiment occurs) would be anathema and literally inconceivable to either of these! So yes, we often suspend disbelief in reading science fiction or fantasy literature in order to enter deeply into the story. But what is also true is that we need to learn to suspend disbelief in intelligent ways in order to appreciate the Mystery of God and the cosmos; we need to do this in order to enter deeply into this great drama. Star Trek's stories may seem easier to believe than stories of the Ascension because the Mystery we call God is greater than anything we can create or even imagine ourselves.

One last point. Early on in my studies of theology (during either my BA or MA work) my professor answered the question, "What do I do if I cannot believe in God?" His answer was, "I would encourage you to act as though it (God's existence) is true and see what happens." My own objection at the time was that that would be encouraging people to engage in pretense, not real faith, and John Dwyer responded further, " Perhaps it seems like that superficially, but what would really be happening is that one would be opening oneself [or remaining open] to allow those things that God alone can do." Another way of saying this is to affirm, one would thus be refusing to close oneself to the Holy Spirit. Once one allowed this openness, one would then compare the differences in one's life before such an openness and afterward. I didn't find John Dwyer's initial answer much more convincing than I found the Christian Science answer re: matter's unreality when I was 8 or 9 yo, but I also mistakenly thought my faith was relatively strong and sufficient. 

I now know that learning to trust (and to be open to Mystery) in the way John described is both more difficult and more intelligent than any cynical skepticism scientific materialism offers us today. And one grows in faith (thanks be to God)! I have experienced things in my life which God alone could do, and I recognize the wisdom (and the humility!!) of John Dwyer's advice to students believing they were atheists or that faith was naive, namely, that they suspend their disbelief, open themselves to new ways of seeing, and see what happens. Of course, this specific form of suspension of disbelief would result in a vocation to commitment to a world itself called to be something ever greater than even the limitations of science can imagine. What is often difficult for us is to understand is that this specific suspension of disbelief is more profoundly wise than science itself can know, or our often-earth-bound imaginations can create.

 Authentic faith (which, again, is not the same as naive credulity) is something different, and in some ways, both more challenging and compelling than the more superficial suspension of disbelief we adopt when we read science fiction or fantasy literature. The essential difference, I think, is that the first type of suspension of disbelief is a form of chosen naivete adopted temporarily for the sake of recreation and enjoyment; it allows us a vacation from reality, while exercising imagination in the service of creativity. This certainly enlivens us. The second type of suspension of disbelief, that of faith, while also exercising imagination in the same service, requires more than our imagination. It is neither naive nor credulous and requires the whole of ourselves in a more direct commitment to enlivening others; as a result, faith opens us to a more intense and extensive commitment to reality itself and is simply more difficult.

Why is imagining Star Trek Stories Easier than Imagining the Ascension?

[[ Hi Sister Laurel, in your post on the Ascension you said that it was difficult for us to believe that Jesus was raised bodily into "heaven". You suggested it might be easier to imagine the Star Trek story as true instead. I wondered why you said that. Thank you.]]

I appreciate your question. Thanks. We humans tend to draw distinct lines between the spiritual and the material and often we rule out any idea that has the two interpenetrating the other or being related in paradoxical ways. We simplify things in other ways as well. For instance, do you remember when the Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin first orbited earth and made a pronouncement that he had now been to space, had looked and looked for God and did not find him? The notion that God's relation to the cosmos was other than as a visible (and material) being among other material beings present in "the heavens" was completely beyond this man's ideology or imagination. The idea of God as Being itself, a being that grounded and was the source of all existence while transcending it all was simply too big an idea for this Cosmonaut. Imagine what he would have done with the notion that everything that exists now exists or is on its way to existing within the very life of God! (Gagarin is now said never to have affirmed this; instead Soviet authorities did and used his flight to do so.)

Another example might be better. When I was young (grade school), I went to a Christian Scientist Church and Sunday School. There, every Sunday, we recited what was called, "The Scientific Statement of Being". It was a bit of neo-Platonic "dogma" written by Mary Baker Eddy. It was the heart of the faith: [[There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-All. Spirit is immortal truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is his image and likeness. Therefore, man is not material; he is spiritual.]] By the time I was seven or eight I was questioning what it meant to say matter is unreal (or, more often, how could I be asked to deny the truth of matter's reality). Imagine what it was like to fall off your bike and tell yourself the blood and pain was "unreal" --- only Spirit is real. 

The answers never satisfied, the dualities were wrong; I think you get the point. The human mind has always had difficulty in refraining from drawing a distinction between the material and the Spiritual even to the point of asserting the two things are antithetical --- even, sometimes, to the extent of denying either matter or spirit actually exists at all.  (Christian Science said matter was unreal, not just in the Platonic sense of being less real than the ideal, but in the sense of asserting that materiality is delusional; on the other hand, contemporary science often says anything except matter is unreal.) An incarnate God, or a God who would make room within his very life for embodied existence like ours (in whatever form that embodiment occurs) would be anathema and literally inconceivable to either of these! So yes, we often suspend disbelief in reading science fiction or fantasy literature in order to enter deeply into the story. But what is also true is that we need to learn to suspend disbelief in intelligent ways in order to appreciate the Mystery of God and the cosmos; we need to do this in order to enter deeply into this great incarnational drama. Star Trek's stories may seem easier to believe than stories of the Ascension because the Mystery we call God is greater than anything we can create or even imagine ourselves.

One last point. Early on when I was studying theology (either BA or MA) my professor answered the question, "What do I do if I cannot believe in God?" His answer was, "I would encourage you to act as though it (God's existence) is true and see what happens." My own objection at the time was that that would be encouraging people to engage in pretense, not real faith, and John responded further, " Perhaps it seems like that superficially, but what would really be happening is that one would be opening oneself [or remaining open] to allow those things that God alone can do." Another way of saying this is to affirm, one would thus be refusing to close oneself to the Holy Spirit. Once one allowed this openness, one would then compare the differences in one's life before such an openness and afterward. I didn't find John Dwyer's initial answer much more convincing then than I found the Christian Science answer re: matter's unreality when I was 7 or 8 yo, but I also mistakenly thought my faith was strong and sufficient. 

I now know that learning to trust (and to be open to Mystery) in the way John described is both more difficult and more intelligent than any cynical skepticism scientific materialism offers us today. And one grows in faith (thanks be to God)! I have experienced things in my life which God alone could do, and I recognize the wisdom (and the humility!!) of John Dwyer's advice to students believing they were atheists or that faith was naive, namely, that they suspend their disbelief, open themselves to new ways of seeing, and see what happens. Of course, this specific form of suspension of disbelief would result in a vocation to commitment to a world itself called to be something ever greater than even the limitations of science can imagine. What is often difficult for us is to understand is that this specific suspension of disbelief is more profoundly wise than science itself can know, or our often-earth-bound imaginations can create.

 Authentic faith, (which, again, is not the same as naive credulity), is something different, and in some ways, both more challenging and compelling than the more superficial suspension of disbelief we adopt when we read science fiction or fantasy literature. The essential difference, I think, is that the first type of suspension of disbelief is a form of chosen naivete adopted temporarily for the sake of recreation and enjoyment; it allows us a vacation from reality, while exercising imagination in the service of creativity. This certainly enlivens us. The second type of suspension of disbelief, that of faith, while also exercising imagination in the same service, requires more than our imagination. It is neither naive nor credulous and requires the whole of ourselves in a more direct commitment to enlivening others; as a result, faith opens us to a more intense and extensive commitment to reality itself and is simply more difficult.

Jesus' Ascension and the Process of Jewish Marriage

So much of what Jesus or the Gospel writers say about the event we call "Ascension" is meant to remind us of the Jewish theology of marriage. It is meant to remind us that the Church, those called and sent in the name of Jesus, is the Bride of Christ --- both betrothed and awaiting the consummation of this marriage. This Friday's Gospel passage from 16 John prepares the disciples for Jesus' "leaving" and the Church wants us to hear it now in terms of the Ascension rather than the crucifixion. Thus, it focuses on the "in-between" time of grief-at-separation, waiting, and bittersweet joy.

Thus too, especially with its imagery of labor and childbirth, it affirms that though Jesus must leave to prepare a place for us, the grief of his "leaving" (really a new kind of presence) will one day turn to unalloyed joy because with and in Christ something new is being brought to birth both in our own lives and in the very life of God. It is an unprecedented reality, an entirely New Life and too, a source of a joy which no one can take from us. Just as the bridegroom remains a real but bittersweet presence and promise in the life of his betrothed, so Jesus' presence in our own lives is a source of now-alloyed and bittersweet joy, both real and unmistakable but also not what it will be when the whole of creation reaches its fulfillment and the marriage between Christ and his Bride is consummated. The union of this consummation is thus the cosmic union of God-made all in all.

The following post reflects on another Johannine text, also preparing us for the Ascension. I wanted to reprise it here because the Gospel texts this week all seek to remind us of the unadulterated joy of Easter and the Parousia (the second-coming and fulfillment) as they prepare us for the bittersweet joy of the in-between time of Ascension and especially because they do so using the imagery of Jewish marriage. This Friday's childbirth imagery in John 16 presupposes and requires this be fresh in our minds.

The Two Stages of Jewish Marriage

The central image Jesus uses in [speaking of his leaving and eventual return] is that of marriage. His disciples are supposed to hear him speaking of the entire process of man and wife becoming one, of a union which represents that between God and mankind (and indeed, all of creation) which is so close that the two cannot be prised apart or even seen as entirely distinguishable realities. Remember that in Jewish marriages there were two steps: 1) the betrothal which was really marriage and which could only be ended by a divorce, and 2) the taking home and consummation stage in this marriage. After the bridegroom travels to his bride's home and the two are betrothed, the bridegroom returns home to build a place for his new bride in his family's home. It is always meant to be a better place than she had before. When this is finished (about a year later) the bridegroom travels back to his bride and with great ceremony (lighted lamps, accompanying friends, etc) brings her back to her new home where the marriage is consummated.

Descent and the Mediation of God's Reconciling Love:

This image of the dual stages in Jewish marriage is an appropriate metaphor of what is accomplished in the two "stages" in salvation history referred to as descent and ascent. When we think of Jesus as mediator or revealer --- or even as Bridegroom --- we are looking at a theology of salvation (soteriology)  in which God first goes out of himself in search of a counterpart. This God  'empties himself' of divine prerogatives --- not least that of remaining in solitary omnipotent splendor --- and in a continuing act of self-emptying creates the cosmos still in search of that counterpart. For this reason the entire process is known as one of descent or kenosis. Over eons of time and through many intermediaries (including prophets, the Law, and several covenants) he continues to go out of himself to summon the "other" into existence, and eventually chooses a People who will reveal  him (that is, make him known and real) to the nations. Finally and definitively in Jesus he is enabled to turn a human face to his chosen People. As God has done in partial and fragmentary ways before, in Christ as Mediator he reveals himself definitively as a jealous and fierce lover, one who will allow nothing, not even sin and godless death (which he actually takes into himself!)** to separate him from his beloved or prevent him from bringing her home with him when the time comes.

Ascension and the Mediation of God's Reconciling Love:

With Jesus' ascension we are confronted with another dimension of Christ's role as mediator; we celebrate the return of the Bridegroom to his father's house --- that is to the very life of God. He goes there to prepare a place for us. As in the Jewish marriage practice, that Divine "household" (that Divine life) will change in a definitive way with the return of the Son (who has also changed and is now an embodied human being who has experienced death, etc.) just as the Son's coming into the world changed it in a definitive way. God is not yet all in all (that comes later) but in Christ humanity has both assumed and been promised a place in God's own life. As my major theology professor used to say to us, "God has taken death into himself and has not been destroyed by it." That is what heaven is all about, active participation and sharing by that which is other than God in the very life of God. Heaven is not like a huge sports arena where everyone who manages to get a ticket stares at the Jumbo Tron (God) and possibly play harps or sing psalms to keep from getting too bored. With the Christ Event God changes the world and reconciles it to himself, but with that same event the very life of God himself is changed as well. The ascension signals this significant change as embodied humanity and all of human experience becomes a part of the life of the transcendent God who is eternal and incorporeal. Some "gods" would be destroyed by this, but not the God of Jesus Christ!

Summary

Mediation (or revelation) occurs in two directions in Christ. Christ IS the gateway between heaven and earth, the "place" where these two realities meet and kiss, the new Temple where sacred and profane come together and are transfigured into a single reality. Jesus as mediator implicates God into our world and all of its moments and moods up to and including sin and godless death. But Jesus as mediator also allows human life, and eventually all of creation to be implicated in and assume a place in God's own life. When this double movement comes to its conclusion, when it is accomplished in fullness and Jesus' commission to reconciliation is entirely accomplished, when, that is, the Bridegroom comes forth once again to finally bring his bride home for the consummation of their marriage, there will be a new heaven and earth where God is all in all; in this parousia both God and creation achieve the will of God together as it was always meant to be.
_______________
** Note: the Scriptures recognize two forms of death. The first is a kind of natural perishing. The second is linked to sin and to the idea that if we choose to live without God we choose to die without him. It is the consequence of sin. This second kind is called variously, sinful death, godless death, eternal death or the second death. This is the death Jesus "takes on" in taking on the reality and consequences of human sinfulness; it is the death he dies while (in his own sinlessness) remaining entirely vulnerable and open to God. It is the death his obedience (openness to and decision for God) allows God to penetrate and transform with his presence. Because of this transformation we each will meet God in death and give our own final, definitive, exhaustive yes to God --- or not. Christ made that possible with his own obedience unto death, death on a cross, something which was not true before Christ.

The resurrection is the event symbolizing the defeat of this death and the first sign that all death will one day fall to the life and love of God. Ascension is the event symbolizing God taking humanity into his own "house", his own life in/through doing this with Christ. We live in hope for the day the promise of Ascension will be true for the whole of God's creation, the day when God will be all in all.

Solemnity of the Ascension and the Jewish Theology of Marriage (reprise)

[I would have liked to have put this up last Thursday on Ascension Day, but it will have to be today instead. I hope it is helpful.]

So much of what Jesus says about the event we call "Ascension" is meant to remind us of the Jewish theology of marriage. It is meant to remind us that the Church, those called and sent in the name of Jesus, is the Bride of Christ --- both betrothed and awaiting the consummation of this marriage. This Friday's Gospel passage from 16 John prepares the disciples for Jesus' "leaving" and the Church wants us to hear it now in terms of the Ascension rather than the crucifixion. Thus, it focuses on the "in-between" time of grief-at-separation, waiting, and bittersweet joy.

Thus too, especially with its imagery of labor and childbirth, it affirms that though Jesus must leave to prepare a place for us, the grief of his "leaving" (really a new kind of presence) will one day turn to unalloyed joy because with and in Christ something new is being brought to birth both in our own lives and in the very life of God. It is an unprecedented reality, an entirely New Life and too, a source of a joy which no one can take from us. Just as the bridegroom remains a real but bittersweet presence and promise in the life of his betrothed, so Jesus' presence in our own lives is a source of now-alloyed and bittersweet joy, both real and unmistakable but also not what it will be when the whole of creation reaches its fulfillment and the marriage between Christ and his Bride is consummated. The union of this consummation is thus the cosmic union of God-made all in all.

The following post reflects on another Johannine text, also preparing us for the Ascension. I wanted to reprise it here because the Gospel texts this week all seek to remind us of the unadulterated joy of Easter and the Parousia (the second-coming and fulfillment) as they prepare us for the bittersweet joy of the in-between time of Ascension and especially because they do so using the imagery of Jewish marriage. This Friday's childbirth imagery in John 16 presupposes and requires this be fresh in our minds.

The Two Stages of Jewish Marriage

The central image Jesus uses in [speaking of his leaving and eventual return] is that of marriage. His disciples are supposed to hear him speaking of the entire process of man and wife becoming one, of a union which represents that between God and mankind (and indeed, all of creation) which is so close that the two cannot be prised apart or even seen as entirely distinguishable realities. Remember that in Jewish marriages there were two steps: 1) the betrothal which was really marriage and which could only be ended by a divorce, and 2) the taking home and consummation stage in this marriage. After the bridegroom travels to his bride's home and the two are betrothed, the bridegroom returns home to build a place for his new bride in his family's home. It is always meant to be a better place than she had before. When this is finished (about a year later) the bridegroom travels back to his bride and with great ceremony (lighted lamps, accompanying friends, etc) brings her back to her new home where the marriage is consummated.

Descent and the Mediation of God's Reconciling Love:

This image of the dual stages in Jewish marriage is an appropriate metaphor of what is accomplished in the two "stages" in salvation history referred to as descent and ascent. When we think of Jesus as mediator or revealer --- or even as Bridegroom --- we are looking at a theology of salvation (soteriology)  in which God first goes out of himself in search of a counterpart. This God  'empties himself' of divine prerogatives --- not least that of remaining in solitary omnipotent splendor --- and in a continuing act of self-emptying creates the cosmos still in search of that counterpart. For this reason the entire process is known as one of descent or kenosis. Over eons of time and through many intermediaries (including prophets, the Law, and several covenants) he continues to go out of himself to summon the "other" into existence, and eventually chooses a People who will reveal  him (that is, make him known and real) to the nations. Finally and definitively in Jesus he is enabled to turn a human face to his chosen People. As God has done in partial and fragmentary ways before, in Christ as Mediator he reveals himself definitively as a jealous and fierce lover, one who will allow nothing, not even sin and godless death (which he actually takes into himself!)** to separate him from his beloved or prevent him from bringing her home with him when the time comes.

Ascension and the Mediation of God's Reconciling Love:

With Jesus' ascension we are confronted with another dimension of Christ's role as mediator; we celebrate the return of the Bridegroom to his father's house --- that is to the very life of God. He goes there to prepare a place for us. As in the Jewish marriage practice, that Divine "household" (that Divine life) will change in a definitive way with the return of the Son (who has also changed and is now an embodied human being who has experienced death, etc.) just as the Son's coming into the world changed it in a definitive way. God is not yet all in all (that comes later) but in Christ humanity has both assumed and been promised a place in God's own life. As my major theology professor used to say to us, "God has taken death into himself and has not been destroyed by it." That is what heaven is all about, active participation and sharing by that which is other than God in the very life of God. Heaven is not like a huge sports arena where everyone who manages to get a ticket stares at the Jumbo Tron (God) and possibly plays harps or sing psalms to keep from getting too bored. With the Christ Event God changes the world and reconciles it to himself, but with that same event the very life of God himself is changed as well. The ascension signals this significant change as embodied humanity and all of human experience becomes a part of the life of the transcendent God who is eternal and incorporeal. Some "gods" would be destroyed by this, but not the God of Jesus Christ!

Summary

Mediation (or revelation) occurs in two directions in Christ. Christ IS the gateway between heaven and earth, the "place" where these two realities meet and kiss, the new Temple where sacred and profane come together and are transfigured into a single reality. Jesus as mediator implicates God into our world and all of its moments and moods up to and including sin and godless death. But Jesus as mediator also allows human life, and eventually all of creation to be implicated in and assume a place in God's own life. When this double movement comes to its conclusion, when it is accomplished in fullness and Jesus' commission to reconciliation is entirely accomplished, when, that is, the Bridegroom comes forth once again to finally bring his bride home for the consummation of their marriage, there will be a new heaven and earth where God is all in all; in this parousia both God and creation achieve the will of God together as it was always meant to be.
_______________
** Note: the Scriptures recognize two forms of death. The first is a kind of natural perishing. The second is linked to sin and to the idea that if we choose to live without God we choose to die without him. It is the consequence of sin. This second kind is called variously, sinful death, godless death, eternal death or the second death. This is the death Jesus "takes on" in taking on the reality and consequences of human sinfulness; it is the death he dies while (in his own sinlessness) remaining entirely vulnerable and open to God. It is the death his obedience (openness to and decision for God) allows God to penetrate and transform with his presence. Because of this transformation we each will meet God in death and give our own final, definitive, exhaustive yes to God --- or not. Christ made that possible with his own obedience unto death, death on a cross, something which was not true before Christ.

The resurrection is the event symbolizing the defeat of this death and the first sign that all death will one day fall to the life and love of God. Ascension is the event symbolizing God taking humanity into his own "house", his own life in/through doing this with Christ. We live in hope for the day the promise of Ascension will be true for the whole of God's creation, the day when God will be all in all.

I Go to Prepare a Place for You: Ascension and Jewish Marriage Imagery (Reprised)

So much of what Jesus says about the event we call "Ascension" is meant to remind us of the Jewish theology of marriage. It is meant to remind us that the Church, those called and sent in the name of Jesus, is the Bride of Christ --- both betrothed and awaiting the consummation of this marriage. This Friday's Gospel passage from 16 John prepares the disciples for Jesus' "leaving" and the Church wants us to hear it now in terms of the Ascension rather than the crucifixion. Thus, it focuses on the "in-between" time of grief-at-separation, waiting, and bittersweet joy.

Thus too, especially with its imagery of labor and childbirth, it affirms that though Jesus must leave to prepare a place for us, the grief of his "leaving" (really a new kind of presence) will one day turn to unalloyed joy because with and in Christ something new is being brought to birth both in our own lives and in the very life of God. It is an unprecedented reality, an entirely New Life and too, a source of a joy which no one can take from us. Just as the bridegroom remains a real but bittersweet presence and promise in the life of his betrothed, so Jesus' presence in our own lives is a source of now-alloyed and bittersweet joy, both real and unmistakable but also not what it will be when the whole of creation reaches its fulfillment and the marriage between Christ and his Bride is consummated. The union of this consummation is thus the cosmic union of God-made all in all.

The following post reflects on another Johannine text, also preparing us for the Ascension. I wanted to reprise it here because the Gospel texts this week all seek to remind us of the unadulterated joy of Easter and the Parousia (the second-coming and fulfillment) as they prepare us for the bittersweet joy of the in-between time of Ascension and especially because they do so using the imagery of Jewish marriage. This Friday's childbirth imagery in John 16 presupposes and requires this be fresh in our minds.

The Two Stages of Jewish Marriage

The central image Jesus uses in [speaking of his leaving and eventual return] is that of marriage. His disciples are supposed to hear him speaking of the entire process of man and wife becoming one, of a union which represents that between God and mankind (and indeed, all of creation) which is so close that the two cannot be prised apart or even seen as entirely distinguishable realities. Remember that in Jewish marriages there were two steps: 1) the betrothal which was really marriage and which could only be ended by a divorce, and 2) the taking home and consummation stage in this marriage. After the bridegroom travels to his bride's home and the two are betrothed, the bridegroom returns home to build a place for his new bride in his family's home. It is always meant to be a better place than she had before. When this is finished (about a year later) the bridegroom travels back to his bride and with great ceremony (lighted lamps, accompanying friends, etc) brings her back to her new home where the marriage is consummated.

Descent and the Mediation of God's Reconciling Love:

This image of the dual stages in Jewish marriage is an appropriate metaphor of what is accomplished in the two "stages" in salvation history referred to as descent and ascent. When we think of Jesus as mediator or revealer --- or even as Bridegroom --- we are looking at a theology of salvation (soteriology)  in which God first goes out of himself in search of a counterpart. This God  'empties himself' of divine prerogatives --- not least that of remaining in solitary omnipotent splendor --- and in a continuing act of self-emptying creates the cosmos still in search of that counterpart. For this reason the entire process is known as one of descent or kenosis. Over eons of time and through many intermediaries (including prophets, the Law, and several covenants) he continues to go out of himself to summon the "other" into existence, and eventually chooses a People who will reveal  him (that is, make him known and real) to the nations. Finally and definitively in Jesus he is enabled to turn a human face to his chosen People. As God has done in partial and fragmentary ways before, in Christ as Mediator he reveals himself definitively as a jealous and fierce lover, one who will allow nothing, not even sin and godless death (which he actually takes into himself!)** to separate him from his beloved or prevent him from bringing her home with him when the time comes.

Ascension and the Mediation of God's Reconciling Love:

With Jesus' ascension we are confronted with another dimension of Christ's role as mediator; we celebrate the return of the Bridegroom to his father's house --- that is to the very life of God. He goes there to prepare a place for us. As in the Jewish marriage practice, that Divine "household" (that Divine life) will change in a definitive way with the return of the Son (who has also changed and is now an embodied human being who has experienced death, etc.) just as the Son's coming into the world changed it in a definitive way. God is not yet all in all (that comes later) but in Christ humanity has both assumed and been promised a place in God's own life. As my major theology professor used to say to us, "God has taken death into himself and has not been destroyed by it." That is what heaven is all about, active participation and sharing by that which is other than God in the very life of God. Heaven is not like a huge sports arena where everyone who manages to get a ticket stares at the Jumbo Tron (God) and possibly plays harps or sing psalms to keep from getting too bored. With the Christ Event God changes the world and reconciles it to himself, but with that same event the very life of God himself is changed as well. The ascension signals this significant change as embodied humanity and all of human experience becomes a part of the life of the transcendent God who is eternal and incorporeal. Some "gods" would be destroyed by this, but not the God of Jesus Christ!

Summary

Mediation (or revelation) occurs in two directions in Christ. Christ IS the gateway between heaven and earth, the "place" where these two realities meet and kiss, the new Temple where sacred and profane come together and are transfigured into a single reality. Jesus as mediator implicates God into our world and all of its moments and moods up to and including sin and godless death. But Jesus as mediator also allows human life, and eventually all of creation to be implicated in and assume a place in God's own life. When this double movement comes to its conclusion, when it is accomplished in fullness and Jesus' commission to reconciliation is entirely accomplished, when, that is, the Bridegroom comes forth once again to finally bring his bride home for the consummation of their marriage, there will be a new heaven and earth where God is all in all; in this parousia both God and creation achieve the will of God together as it was always meant to be.
_______________
** Note: the Scriptures recognize two forms of death. The first is a kind of natural perishing. The second is linked to sin and to the idea that if we choose to live without God we choose to die without him. It is the consequence of sin. This second kind is called variously, sinful death, godless death, eternal death or the second death. This is the death Jesus "takes on" in taking on the reality and consequences of human sinfulness; it is the death he dies while (in his own sinlessness) remaining entirely vulnerable and open to God. It is the death his obedience (openness) allows God to penetrate and transform with his presence.

The resurrection is the event symbolizing the defeat of this death and the first sign that all death will one day fall to the life and love of God. Ascension is the event symbolizing God taking humanity into his own "house", his own life in Christ. We live in hope for the day the promise of Ascension will be true for the whole of God's creation, the day when God will be all in all.

Marking (the Feast of) Corpus Christi: Divine Power Perfected in Weakness

[[Dear Sister, if a person is chronically ill then isn't their illness a sign that "the world" of sin and death are still operating in [i.e., dominating] their lives?  . . . I have always thought that to become a religious one needed to be in good health. Has that also changed with canon 603? I don't mean that someone has to be perfect to become a nun or hermit but shouldn't they at least be in good health? Wouldn't that say more about the "heavenliness" of their vocation than illness? ]] (Concatenation of queries posed in several emails)

As I read these various questions one image kept recurring to me, namely, that of Thomas reaching out to touch the wounds of the risen Christ. I also kept thinking of a line from a homily my pastor (John Kasper, OSFS) gave about 7 years ago which focused on Carravagio's painting of this image; the line was,  "There's Another World in There!" It was taken in part from the artist and writer Jan Richardson's reflections on this painting and on the nature of the Incarnation. Richardson wrote:

[[The gospel writers want to make sure we know that the risen Christ was no ghost, no ethereal spirit. He was flesh and blood. He ate. He still, as Thomas discovered, wore the wounds of crucifixion. That Christ’s flesh remained broken, even in his resurrection, serves as a powerful reminder that his intimate familiarity and solidarity with us, with our human condition, did not end with his death. . . Perhaps that’s what is so striking about Caravaggio’s painting: it stuns us with the awareness of how deeply Christ was, and is, joined with us. The wounds of the risen Christ are not a prison: they are a passage. Thomas’ hand in Christ’s side is not some bizarre, morbid probe: it is a  union, and a reminder that in taking flesh, Christ wed himself to us.]] Living into the Resurrection

Into the Wound, Jan L Richardson

My response then must really begin with a series of questions to you. Are the Risen Christ's wounds a sign that sin and death are still "operating in" him or are they a sign that God has been victorious over these --- and victorious not via an act of force but through one of radical vulnerability and compassion? Are his wounds really a passage to "another world" or are they signs of his bondage to and defeat by the one which contends with him and the Love he represents? Do you believe that our world is at least potentially sacramental or that heaven (eternal life in the sovereign love of God) and this world interpenetrate one another as a result of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection or are they entirely separate from and opposed to one another? Even as I ask these questions I am aware that they may be answered in more than one way. In our own lives too, we may find that the wounds and scars of illness and brokenness witness more to the world of sin and death than they do to that of redemption and eternal life. They may represent a prison more than they represent a passage to another world.

Or not.

When I write about discerning an eremitical vocation and the importance of the critical transition that must be made from being a lone pious person living physical silence and solitude to essentially being a hermit living "the silence of solitude," I am speaking of a person who has moved from the prison of illness to illness as passage to another world through the redemptive grace of God. We cannot empower or accomplish such a transition ourselves. The transfiguration of our lives is the work of God. At the same time, the scars of our lives will remain precisely as an invitation to others to see the power of God at work in our weakness and in God's own kenosis (self-emptying). These scars become Sacraments of God's powerful presence in our lives, vivid witnesses to the One who loves us in our brokenness and yet works continuously to bring life, wholeness, and meaning out of  death, brokenness, and absurdity.

To become a hermit (especially to be publicly professed as a Catholic hermit) someone suffering from chronic illness has to have made this transition. Their lives may involve suffering but the suffering has become a sacrament which attests less to itself  (and certainly not to an obsession with pain) but to the God who is a Creator-redeemer God. What you tend to see as an obstacle to living a meaningful profoundly prophetic religious or eremitical life seems to me to be a symbol of the heart of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It also seems to me to remind us of the nature of "heavenliness" in light of the Ascension. Remember that one side of the salvation event we call the Christ is God's descent so that our world may be redeemed and entirely transformed into a new creation. But the other side of this Event is the Ascension where God takes scarred humanity and even death itself up into his own life --- thus changing the very nature of heaven (the sovereign life of God shared with others) in the process.

Far from being an inadequate witness to "heavenliness" our wounds can be the most perfect witness to God's sovereign life shared with us. Our God has embraced the wounds and scars of the world as his very own and not been demeaned, much less destroyed in the process. Conversely, for Christians, the marks of the crucifixion, as well therefore as our own illnesses, weaknesses and various forms of brokenness, are (or are meant to become) the quintessential symbols of a heaven which embraces our own lives and world to make them new. When this transformation occurs in the life of a chronically ill individual seeking to live eremitical life it is the difference between a life of one imprisoned in physical isolation, silence, and solitude, to that of one which breathes and sings "the silence of solitude." It is this song, this prayer, this magnificat that Canon 603 describes so well and consecrated life in all its forms itself represents.

Bowl patched with Gold

We Christians do not hide our woundedness then. We are not ashamed at the way life has marked and marred, bent and broken, spindled and mutilated us. But neither are woundedness or brokenness themselves the things we witness to. Instead it is the Sacrament God has made of our lives, the Love that does justice and makes whole that is the source of our beauty and our boasting. Jan Richardson also reminds us of this truth when she recalls Sue Bender's observations on seeing a mended Japanese bowl. [[“The image of that bowl,” she writes, “made a lasting impression. Instead of trying to hide the flaws, the cracks were emphasized — filled with silver. The bowl was even more precious after it had been mended.”]]  So too with our own lives: as Paul also said, "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing power will be of God and not from ourselves."  (2 Cor 4:7) It is the mended cracks, the wounds which were once prisons, the shards of a broken life now reconstituted entirely by the grace of God which reveal the very presence of heaven to those we meet.

I go to Prepare a Place for You: Ascension and the Imagery of Jewish Marriage

So much of what Jesus says about the event we call "Ascension" is meant to remind us of the Jewish theology of marriage. It is meant to remind us that the Church, those called and sent in the name of Jesus, is the Bride of Christ --- both betrothed and awaiting the consummation of this marriage. This Friday's Gospel passage from 16 John prepares the disciples for Jesus' "leaving" and the Church wants us to hear it now in terms of the Ascension rather than the crucifixion. Thus, it focuses on the "in-between" time of grief-at-separation, waiting, and bittersweet joy.

Thus too, especially with its imagery of labor and childbirth, it affirms that though Jesus must leave to prepare a place for us, the grief of his "leaving" (really a new kind of presence) will one day turn to unalloyed joy because with and in Christ something new is being brought to birth both in our own lives and in the very life of God. It is an unprecedented reality, an entirely New Life and too, a source of a joy which no one can take from us. Just as the bridegroom remains a real but bittersweet presence and promise in the life of his betrothed, so Jesus' presence in our own lives is a source of now-alloyed and bittersweet joy, both real and unmistakable but also not what it will be when the whole of creation reaches its fulfillment and the marriage between Christ and his Bride is consummated. The union of this consummation is thus the cosmic union of God-made all in all.

The following post reflects on another Johannine text, also preparing us for the Ascension. I wanted to reprise it here because the Gospel texts this week all seek to remind us of the unadulterated joy of Easter and the Parousia (the second-coming and fulfillment) as they prepare us for the bittersweet joy of the in-between time of Ascension and especially because they do so using the imagery of Jewish marriage. This Friday's childbirth imagery in John 16 presupposes and requires this be fresh in our minds.

The Two Stages of Jewish Marriage

The central image Jesus uses in [speaking of his leaving and eventual return] is that of marriage. His disciples are supposed to hear him speaking of the entire process of man and wife becoming one, of a union which represents that between God and mankind (and indeed, all of creation) which is so close that the two cannot be prised apart or even seen as entirely distinguishable realities. Remember that in Jewish marriages there were two steps: 1) the betrothal which was really marriage and which could only be ended by a divorce, and 2) the taking home and consummation stage in this marriage. After the bridegroom travels to his bride's home and the two are betrothed, the bridegroom returns home to build a place for his new bride in his family's home. It is always meant to be a better place than she had before. When this is finished (about a year later) the bridegroom travels back to his bride and with great ceremony (lighted lamps, accompanying friends, etc) brings her back to her new home where the marriage is consummated.

Descent and the Mediation of God's Reconciling Love:

This image of the dual stages in Jewish marriage is an appropriate metaphor of what is accomplished in the two "stages" in salvation history referred to as descent and ascent. When we think of Jesus as mediator or revealer --- or even as Bridegroom --- we are looking at a theology of salvation (soteriology)  in which God first goes out of himself in search of a counterpart. This God  'empties himself' of divine prerogatives --- not least that of remaining in solitary omnipotent splendor --- and in a continuing act of self-emptying creates the cosmos still in search of that counterpart. For this reason the entire process is known as one of descent or kenosis. Over eons of time and through many intermediaries (including prophets, the Law, and several covenants) he continues to go out of himself to summon the "other" into existence, and eventually chooses a People who will reveal  him (that is, make him known and real) to the nations. Finally and definitively in Jesus he is enabled to turn a human face to his chosen People. As God has done in partial and fragmentary ways before, in Christ as Mediator he reveals himself definitively as a jealous and fierce lover, one who will allow nothing, not even sin and godless death (which he actually takes into himself!)** to separate him from his beloved or prevent him from bringing her home with him when the time comes.

Ascension and the Mediation of God's Reconciling Love:

With Jesus' ascension we are confronted with another dimension of Christ's role as mediator; we celebrate the return of the Bridegroom to his father's house --- that is to the very life of God. He goes there to prepare a place for us. As in the Jewish marriage practice, that Divine "household" (that Divine life) will change in a definitive way with the return of the Son (who has also changed and is now an embodied human being who has experienced death, etc.) just as the Son's coming into the world changed it in a definitive way. God is not yet all in all (that comes later) but in Christ humanity has both assumed and been promised a place in God's own life. As my major theology professor used to say to us, "God has taken death into himself and has not been destroyed by it." That is what heaven is all about, active participation and sharing by that which is other than God in the very life of God. Heaven is not like a huge sports arena where everyone who manages to get a ticket stares at the Jumbo Tron (God) and possibly plays harps or sing psalms to keep from getting too bored. With the Christ Event God changes the world and reconciles it to himself, but with that same event the very life of God himself is changed as well. The ascension signals this significant change as embodied humanity and all of human experience becomes a part of the life of the transcendent God who is eternal and incorporeal. Some "gods" would be destroyed by this, but not the God of Jesus Christ!

Summary

Mediation (or revelation) occurs in two directions in Christ. Christ IS the gateway between heaven and earth, the "place" where these two realities meet and kiss, the new Temple where sacred and profane come together and are transfigured into a single reality. Jesus as mediator implicates God into our world and all of its moments and moods up to and including sin and godless death. But Jesus as mediator also allows human life, and eventually all of creation to be implicated in and assume a place in God's own life. When this double movement comes to its conclusion, when it is accomplished in fullness and Jesus' commission to reconciliation is entirely accomplished, when, that is, the Bridegroom comes forth once again to finally bring his bride home for the consummation of their marriage, there will be a new heaven and earth where God is all in all; in this parousia both God and creation achieve the will of God together as it was always meant to be.
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** Note: the Scriptures recognize two forms of death. The first is a kind of natural perishing. The second is linked to sin and to the idea that if we choose to live without God we choose to die without him. It is the consequence of sin. This second kind is called variously, sinful death, godless death, eternal death or the second death. This is the death Jesus "takes on" in taking on the reality and consequences of human sinfulness; it is the death he dies while (in his own sinlessness) remaining entirely vulnerable and open to God. It is the death his obedience (openness) allows God to penetrate and transform with his presence.

The resurrection is the event symbolizing the defeat of this death and the first sign that all death will one day fall to the life and love of God. Ascension is the event symbolizing God taking humanity into his own "house", his own life in Christ. We live in hope for the day the promise of Ascension will be true for the whole of God's creation, the day when God will be all in all.