Episode 26: Year A – The Ascension of the Lord
In this episode of the Sunday Catholic Word, we focus on five details that come each of the readings for the Ascension of the Lord, Year A, which for most dioceses in the United States was transferred from May 18th to this Sunday, May 21st. The topics that these details highlight are as follows: Jesus’ resurrection, the baptism of the Holy Spirit and its relation to the Sacrament of Confirmation, Jesus’s Messiahship, Jesus’ Divinity, and the trinitarian formula for the Sacrament of Baptism.
Readings: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052123-Ascension.cfm
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Hey everyone,
Welcome to The Sunday Catholic Word, a podcast where we reflect on the upcoming Sunday Mass readings and pick out the details that are relevant for explaining and defending our Catholic faith.
I’m Karlo Broussard, staff apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers, and the host for this podcast.
In this episode, we focus on five details that come each of the readings for the Ascension of the Lord, Year A, which for most dioceses in the United States was transferred from May 18th to this Sunday, May 21st. The details that we’ll focus on come from each of the readings for this upcoming Sunday excluding the Psalmody. The topics that these details highlight are Jesus’ resurrection, the baptism of the Holy Spirit and its relation to the Sacrament of Confirmation, Jesus’s Messiahship, Jesus’ Divinity, and the trinitarian formula for the Sacrament of Baptism.
Let’s start with the first reading, which comes from Acts 1:1-11, Luke’s account of our Lord’s Ascension. I’m not going to read the whole passage but only highlight the relevant details for doing apologetics. There are two of them.
First, Luke tells us that Jesus “presented himself alive to them by many proofs after he had suffered, appearing to them during forty days” (v.3). This detail comes into play in conversations concerning Jesus’ resurrection.
Skeptics of the past have argued that perhaps what the early Christians saw concerning the resurrected Jesus was merely a hallucination. This is known as the Hallucination Theory.
But the above detail undermines such a theory. Notice Jesus appeared to the disciples for forty days. And we can assume that Jesus did different things with these disciples for each of the days. So, the Hallucination theory would have us believe that the disciples to whom Jesus allegedly appeared all hallucinated the different things at the same time for each of the days. That simply doesn’t fit the common experience of hallucinations, which are normally restricted to the individual and not the same for multiple peoples.
The second detail in this passage is Jesus’ promise that the disciples would be “baptized with the Holy Spirit” (v.6).
It’s often the case that Charismatic Christians—both Catholic and non-Catholic alike—speak of the “baptism of the Holy Spirit” as a reference to an experience of the presence of the Holy Spirit in a powerful way, often accompanied by outward manifestations such as miracles, prophesy, or speaking in tongues.
But for Catholics, the “baptism of the Holy Spirit” need not be restricted to an experience of the Spirit and its outward manifestations, like speaking in tongues. I would argue that, at least for us as Catholics, it primarily refers to the Sacrament of Confirmation.
Consider, for example, that for St. Peter, in Acts 11:15-16, the “baptism of the Holy Spirit” that Jesus promises the Father will give is a reference to the descent of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2.
Now, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches in paragraph 1288 that the Sacrament of Confirmation “in a certain way perpetuates the grace of Pentecost in the Church.” A biblical example of this is found in Acts 8, where Peter and John administer the Sacrament of Confirmation by laying hands on the newly baptized Christians in Samaria which results in these new Christians receiving a special outpouring of the Holy Spirit like what was received on the day of Pentecost. The similarity of the outpouring is evidenced by outward manifestations that prompted Simon to want to buy such power.
We’re now in a position to see the connection between the ‘baptism of the Holy Spirit’ and Confirmation: if Pentecost was the event where the early Christians received their “baptism” of the Holy Spirit, and according to the Catechism Confirmation perpetuates the graces of Pentecost, then it follows that to be confirmed is to be “baptized in the Holy Spirit.” We receive the Pentecost outpouring of the Spirit which allows us to spread and defend the faith in word and deed with courage, like the apostles on the Day of Pentecost and after.
This being the case, we can see that just because some confirmed Christians might not have the gift of tongues it doesn’t mean they haven’t been “baptized in the Holy Spirit.” Remember, Paul teaches in 1 Cor. 12:30 that not all members of Christ’s Body have this gift.
So, if you’ve ever been asked, “Have you been baptized in the Holy Ghost?”, and you’ve received the Sacrament of Confirmation, then you can with some charismatic flare, “Amen, brotha!”
The second reading comes from Ephesians 1:17-23. The verses worthy of highlight for our purposes here are verses 20-23. Paul writes,
“[God raised Christ] from the dead and [seated] him at his right hand in the heavens, 21 far above every principality, authority, power, and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And he put all things beneath his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.”
There are two details here that we’re going to focus on. The first is Paul’s statement that God seated Christ “at his right hand in the heavens” (v.20). This signifies Paul’s belief that Jesus is the Messiah.
The image of “sitting at the right hand” is an allusion to Psalm 110:1, which describes the coronation and enthronement of the Messiah in heaven. It reads, “The LORD says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.’” For Paul, this text is fulfilled in Jesus, who reigns besides the Father and wields royal authority governing the entire cosmos.
Now, it’s important to point out for the purposes of the feast of the Ascension that Paul’s teaching here is associated with Christ’s Ascension. Take, for example, the idea of Christ sitting at the right hand of God. Mark makes the connection in Mark 16:19: “19 So then the Lord Jesus,” he writes, “after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.”
The Catechism picks up on Paul’s statements about Christ being above “all rule and authority and power and dominion” and the Father “putting all things under his feet” and connects them with the Ascension. Paragraph 668 states,
Christ’s Ascension into heaven signifies his participation, in his humanity, in God’s power and authority. Jesus Christ is Lord: he possesses all power in heaven and on earth. He is “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion,” for the Father “has put all things under his feet.” Christ is Lord of the cosmos and of history. In him human history and indeed all creation are “set forth” and transcendently fulfilled.
One last note: Psalm 110:1 is the most cited Old Testament passage in the New Testament (Matt. 22:44; Acts 2:34-35; 1 Cor. 15:25; Heb. 1:13).
The second detail from this second reading is Paul’s teaching that Jesus’s name is above “every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one to come.” This is the same teaching that Paul gives in Philippians 1:9, the famous kenosis passage. The question is: how can Jesus’ name be above the highest name of God, which the Jews didn’t even speak, unless He were God himself? The exalted status of Jesus’ name reveals Paul’s belief that Jesus was God.
Let’s now turn to the Gospel, which is taken from Matthew 28:16-20, which is Matthew’s account of the great commission. There are two details here that we’re going to highlight.
The first is Matthew’s report that the apostles “worshipped” Jesus. The second is Jesus’ instruction for the apostles to baptize with the Trinitarian formula.
Concerning the worship of Jesus, the Greek word used is proskuneo, which means to bow down or prostrate. Sometimes it’s used to signify bowing down in the sense of worship and other times it’s not.
The question is how is Matthew using it here? The contextual details seem to suggest that it’s being used in the worship sense.
Note, for example, that some of the apostles didn’t recognize Jesus. How could they possibly not recognize him? They spent three years with Him.
Also, they’re up on a mountain where theophanies take place. When we put these two details together, it’s reasonable to think that Jesus was appearing to the apostles in some glorious way like how He manifested His glory on the Mount of Transfiguration.
If we interpret the apostles as “worshipping” Jesus here, then we have evidence that the apostles believed Jesus was divine, thus excluding the idea that belief in Jesus’ divinity was a legendary development that came about later in Christian history.
Now, as I mentioned, the second detail is Jesus’ instruction for the apostles to baptize “in the name of the Father, and the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” As I point out in my article from Catholic Answers Magazine Online “Baptize in the Name of Who?”, this at least proves that the Trinitarian formula is a valid form of baptism. No self-professed Christian can reject this. It’s from the lips of Christ himself.
But the question becomes, “What about those passages where it speaks of “in the name of Jesus”?
For example, like Acts 2:38, where Peter says, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (emphasis added). Other passages include Acts 8:14-16 (with reference to those in Samaria who had received the Word of God), 10:48 (with reference to Cornelius and his Gentile friends), and 19:5 (with reference to believers in Ephesus).
Here’s the key to answering the above question: when compared to Jesus’ instruction to use the Trinitarian formula in Matthew 28:19, the passages found in the book of Acts don’t seem to refer to the actual formula that must be used in administering the sacrament.
Notice how in Matthew 28:19 Jesus is privately addressing only the eleven (Matt. 28:16) whom he is sending to perform baptisms. In context, it makes sense that Jesus would be telling them exactly how to do it.
Peter’s injunction in Acts 2, in contrast, takes place in a public setting and is given to those who would receive baptism—not to those who would be performing it. There’s no need for those receiving the sacrament, especially in that context, to know the precise formula.
This same response can be applied to Acts 10:48 where Luke records Peter telling Cornellius and his friends to be baptized. They don’t need to be told the formula in those circumstances.
Also, Luke doesn’t record what Peter said specifically. He merely narrates in summary form that Peter “commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.” It doesn’t seem that Luke intends to say that the words “in the name of Jesus” were Peter’s instructions for the actual words to be used in administering baptism.
The other “in the name of Jesus” passages (Acts 8:14-16; 19:5) are even further removed from the nature of Jesus’ instructions in Matthew 28:19. In fact, they aren’t instructions at all.
Each instance is merely a passing reference to the fact that some were baptized. It’s unlikely that such cursory remarks were meant as an articulation of the exact words that were used for those baptisms.
“Okay,” you might ask, “If the phrase ‘in the name of Jesus’ doesn’t refer to the baptismal formula in the above passages, then what does it refer to?” A reasonable answer is that the early Church used “in the name of Jesus” to distinguish Jesus’s baptism from other contemporary types of baptism, such as Johannine baptism, the baptisms among the Qumran sectaries, and even Jewish ritual washings.
With all the other baptisms being performed at the time of Christ, there would be a need to distinguish the Christian baptism—“in the name of Jesus”—from all these other kinds of baptisms.
We see this play out in Acts 19, where Paul approaches new believers in Ephesus and asks them if they had received the Holy Spirit. The new believers respond to the inquiry, “No, we have never even heard that there is a Holy Spirit” (v.2). Paul then asks, “Into what then were you baptized?” The Ephesian believers respond, “Into John’s baptism” (v.3).
Paul replies by articulating the difference between John’s baptism and the baptism of Jesus (v.4), and baptizes them “in the name of Jesus” (v.5). In light of the context, “in the name of Jesus” signifies that they were baptized into Jesus with Jesus’s baptism and not John’s.
A final thing that we can say in response to the “in the name of Jesus” challenge is that Paul’s conversation with the Ephesian believers in Acts 19 hints to the fact that the Trinitarian formula was indeed a common formula used in the early Church. Note how when the believers in Ephesus inform Paul that they had never heard of the Holy Spirit, Paul immediately asks, “Into what then were you baptized?” (v.3).
The implication is that if they had been baptized with the baptism of Jesus and not only with the baptism of John, they would have heard about the Holy Spirit. This suggests that the early Christians were using the Trinitarian formula when they baptized. You can’t undergo a Christian baptism and never hear about the Holy Spirit!
So not only do the “in the name of Jesus” passages fail to prove that “in the name of Jesus” is the only valid form to use for baptism, but there is good biblical evidence that the Trinitarian formula is the valid formula for administering the sacrament.
Conclusion
Well, my friends, that does it for this episode of the Sunday Catholic Word. The Ascension of our Lord feast gives us several apologetical topics to reflect on:
- A defense of Jesus’ resurrection against the Hallucination Theory
- The Sacrament of Confirmation as “the baptism of the Holy Spirit”
- The messiahship of Jesus
- The divinity of Jesus
- The Trinitarian formula for the Sacrament of Baptism
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I hope you have a blessed feast of the Ascension of Our Lord.