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Catholic in Brooklyn: The Message of Ascension Thursday

Good news: Jesus has defeated death. That is the good news of His resurrection. Jesus brings us life and life in all its fullness. We will live forever with Him. Jesus holds the keys of death. Death has no grip on us.

Believers “are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). What can separate us from the love of God in the Messiah? “Neither death nor life” (verse 38). Jesus has conquered death, and believers stand firm on Jesus’ words:

I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies. And everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die

(John 11:25–26)

  • Romans 6:9 — 9 knowing that the Messiah, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.
  • Acts 2:24 — 24 “But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.
  • 1 Corinthians 15:26 — 26 The last enemy that will be abolished is death.
  • 1 Corinthians 15:54–57 — 54 But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. 55 “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; 57 but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Master Jesus the Messiah.
  • 2 Timothy 1:10 — 10 but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior the Messiah Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the good news [gospel],
  • Revelation 1:18 — 18 and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.