Daily Scripture, May 17, 2026

Scripture

Acts 1:1-11
Ephesians 1:17-23
Matthew 28:16-20

Reflection

Jesus’ work has ended; our work has just begun. That might be the best way of summarizing the solemn feast we celebrate today, the Ascension of the Lord. The Ascension of Jesus into heaven is the glorious culminating event in his life and ministry, signifying that his time on earth has come to an end as he returns to the Father who sent him. But the Ascension does not mark the end of the story because the disciples do not return to the lives they knew before Jesus called them, as if their time with Jesus was just some brief, if memorable, interruption in the otherwise unruffled trajectory of their lives.

No, today’s feast makes indisputably clear that what Jesus began is to continue through his disciples, which, of course, includes all of us. That’s why in today’s gospel when Jesus gives his disciples the “Great Commissioning” (“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations…”), we should know those words are meant not only for those who witnessed his Ascension that day in Galilee, but for us as well.

This is even clearer in the first reading from Acts, written by the evangelist Luke. Luke recounts that after he had risen from the dead, Jesus told his apostles that they would “receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you,” so that they would be his “witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Through that baptism, they would be so infused with the life and power of the Spirit that they would be utterly transformed—energized and emboldened—to proclaim the gospel, no matter where it took them, to all they encountered.

It is no different for us. We, too, have been “baptized with the Holy Spirit” because, like the first disciples, we have been claimed by Christ to be his witnesses to every person who comes our way. That is our fundamental identity and our foundational vocation, that is our lifetime mission. Or as today’s reading from Ephesians reminds us, we are Christ’s “body” in the world, called to do his work in the world.

It’s hard to imagine anything better.