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Kate Taliaferro ponders how Jesus spent His next-to-last day on Earth with His disciples.


Tomorrow is the Feast of the Ascension of Jesus. While the sentiment, “Live today as if it were your last,” is commonly used in many Christian circles to encourage people to live in the present moment and not to wait to share the Good News, I’m curious about the day before. Today is Jesus’ second-to-last day on Earth. How do we think He spent it? How did the disciples spend it?

Based on the four Gospels and the Ascension account in Acts, we don’t really know if Jesus prepared His apostles for a specific date for the Ascension. He had told them that He would be returning to the Father (John 7:33 and John 20:17) but there wasn’t really a timeline laid out. I wonder if the disciples, after spending so much time with Jesus, sensed that things were coming to a close. It is interesting to consider what their final question to Jesus was before He ascended.

“Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom of Israel?” (Acts 1:6). If you have been studying Scripture for a while, you may be thinking that the disciples still don’t get it. Why are they still fixated on the kingdom of Israel business—Jesus didn’t come to overthrow the Romans. This was my immediate reaction. However, I took some time to look this passage up in my St. Jerome Biblical Commentary and I found a different idea, one which makes Jesus’ answer make more sense in my view.

The disciples were asking about the parousia. Parousia is Greek for, “presence,” or “arrival.” This term was often used to describe the climax of salvation history, when Jesus would come to restore God’s reign, the kingdom Israel was supposed to be, on Earth. So, the disciples are asking Jesus if, now that He has resurrected, this is the time He told them would come. Jesus’ answer is twofold. First, He tells them that the time for the parousia is not for them to know. However, that doesn’t mean that the Spirit won’t be sent to them either. Jesus is explaining the in-between period which we are still living in. The Spirit is here; the parousia is still to come.

 

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Deep in the heart of the disciples’ question, I see a desire to remain close to Jesus. #catholicmom

Deep in the heart of the disciples’ question, I see a desire to remain close to Jesus. If they sensed things were about to change, they wanted to know how they would be able to stay with Him. What would that look like? How would it work? We have these same questions, don’t we? We want to know what’s coming next in our life. How will things work out? What will be different? As the disciples discovered, there isn’t a detailed map to follow. Amazingly, however, we have still been given the same tools the disciples were. We have a commission and we have the Spirit. By virtue of our Baptism, we are disciples sent on mission to go and be witnesses of Jesus’ Life, Death, and Resurrection to the whole world. And we do this through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The disciples could have been concerned about a great many things in those final days and moments with Jesus. What about persecution? What about logistics? What about Gentiles? What about numbers? Their final question zeroes in on what was most important to them: how do we stay close to You?

Can we say the same?

 

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[Editor's Note: According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, only archdioceses and dioceses within the ecclesial provinces of Boston, Hartford, New York, Omaha, and Philadelphia observe Ascension Thursday, 40 days after Easter. All other archdioceses and dioceses within the United States, including those in New Jersey, have moved the celebration to the Seventh Sunday of Easter.]


Copyright 2022 Kate Taliaferro
Images: Canva