Ascension and Pentecost

Ascension and Pentecost
I went mountain climbing on Ascension Sunday. It is interesting that this happened on this particular weekend as it reminded me once again of the different experiences there is in ascending and descending. Let me set the record straight first, I am not a very good mountaineer although I joined an organization while in college and so some of my comments may not apply. But the experience, nonetheless, is quite real.
Ascending is generally easier than descending although the latter could appear quicker. Usually, when I climb, the exertion is more in getting a good rhythm going. Breath properly, keep a good pace, and swear you will never do this again. But then there is the exhilaration of reaching the summit. Unfortunately, ascending is only half the trip. The second half requires a descent and this one really tasks the thighs and the knees. Our weight is a real enemy and there is no exhilaration upon descent, just relief. During ascent, heaven is goal, during descent, the earth or ground level is the objective.
During the course of this weekend, it got me thinking about the two festivals the round out the entire Easter season. The first involves an ascent, the ascension of the resurrected Christ. If this was anything like my climbing experience, then it was truly an exhilarating experience, one that fills out the breathing of an individual, one that makes you feel alive. This is what we experience when we ascend. Our breathing is what we can really hear and experience; achieving the summit literally places us above the clouds. But it also has a secondary experience, the one of the climber who is following, who can see the climber before him climbing steadily out of sight. Then there is an incredible longing not to be left. This combination of experiences may have surrounded the apostles at the moment of Christ ascension. It is almost a conflict of experience and yet, there is something more to it than meets the eye. What do we really experience within when we are witnessing an ascent? This is what we should perhaps ask ourselves.
Ten days after the ascension, there is a descent of sorts. There is the descent of the Holy Spirit on the twelve. Here the experience is different. It impacts our lower limbs, our limbs responsible for getting us from here to there, in other words, our willing element. In fact, the Holy Spirit fills the twelve and suddenly, they can “do” things: speak in tongues, and go out and do the Lord’s work. And all this takes place on earth. And just like descending from a mountain, feeling our thigh muscles cramp, our knees weaken, we realize that sometimes to do what we know is the right thing to do becomes extremely difficult. We feel “weak in the knees” as some would say. We are overcome by something that makes it difficult for us to act. Descending to do what is right is extremely painful. And being filled with the Holy Spirit to do the will of the Lord, became an extremely painful experience for the apostles.
We cannot really imagine the experience of the apostles for these two events. We weren’t there. Although their accounts exist, the fact remains that we weren’t there. This makes it difficult to relate to our daily lives. What does the Ascension mean? What does the Pentecost (the descent of the Holy Spirit) really mean in our lives? One of these events draws our gaze heavenward, the other turns the gaze directly to us and our deeds. I have found that my experience in climbing, reawakened during the weekend of the Ascension gave me a chance to physically experience what this might have meant.
In our daily lives, these two festivals pass us by. We only remember them because of the Sunday sermon. And yet, they do have great significance to the Easter festival. Somehow, we need to awaken this experience within our beings. Pentecost, the event that impacts the twelve apostles directly, occurs 50 days after Easter. Why 50 and not 40 days which seems the standard in the Bible (40 days of rain, Lent is 40 days long, Ascension is 40 days after Easter). Clearly, the 50 has a different meaning from the 40 and as it affects the 12, then perhaps one may say that the festival of Pentecost affects man directly. Do we allow the Holy Spirit to dwell within us? Who really knows. We can say yes as an intellectual exercise but what does it really mean.
We had 40 days to prepare for Easter, 40 days to prepare for the Ascension, but 50 days to prepare ourselves for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Surely, the significance of this event cannot be lost to us. Do we have the will to rediscover the Holy Spirit within us and allow this will to descend into our very deeds? Only each of us will ever really know the answer. But if this event can transform 12 ordinary men, hiding in fear of their lives, into the greatest doers of good works since the Christ, then perhaps we too can learn more from this event. The separation of Christ’s ascent awakens in each of us the responsibility to do what He did. And may that be guided by the Holy Spirit.
The next time we try to climb a mountain, let us all listen to the experience of ascending and descending, that it may live in our lives forever.