We endured the 40 days of Lent in preparation for the Joy of Christ’s Resurrection. We now come to the end of the 40 day period of Paschal tide. In these 40 days the Resurrected Lord remained with us, manifesting his glorious presence and teaching concerning the kingdom of God. One of the critical things he did during this time was to cement the Apostles in their authority as the foundation of the Church. He taught them and gave them commandments concerning the establishment and governance of His Church. I believe it was during this time that the foundation was laid at least in their hearts for what would become the Gospels and much of the NT.
He remained long enough to see to it that we are well acquainted with His new and glorified flesh. St. John testifies to this when he says: “we beheld His glory”. During these 40 days our faith has been firmly established in the glorified Man Jesus of Nazareth. The vision of our elder brother who goes before us to claim his crown has been imprinted upon the mind of the Church so that no test or trial can rob us of it.
Now it is time for Him to go or else the Spirit will not come to fill all things. And so we come to this great feast of the Ascension when the glorified man ascends bodily into Heaven to claim His scepter and throne until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet.
According to the Prophet Isaiah the Word of God, which is the eternal Son and Logos proceeded from the mouth of God, and did not return to Him void. He proceeded in the Annunciation and returned at the Ascension. When He returned to God He did not go back as He came, He took something to God which he received here.
The eternal Son came down here and took our humanity in all its fullness, not just so we may be forgiven or delivered from the power of death and the Devil. As wonderful as all this is it only makes possible something even more glorious, it is a necessary part of the work but not its completion.
Why did He descend? And the answer is simple: He descended that He might ascend. He came down; He became a man so that he could go up. The fulfillment of the Incarnation is realized in the Ascension.
He obviously did not come down so He could go up for His own sake. He was already in eternal perfection. Before He came he was simply uncreated Logos, but He returns different than he came. The Word does not return void but returns to the mysterious Triune sanctum with a gift, He returns as Man and brings us into communion with God in a way which was never possible before.
St. Paul says He became poor that we might become rich. He impoverished himself when he added humanity to His divinity; but in so doing he made us rich by uniting divinity to the humanity, he is no longer simply divine eternal God He is now God and Man.
God became a man to make man a partaker of the divine Nature. This is the end and consummation of created man. The fullness of our purpose for being and it is revealed in this great feast when the Son of Man ascends into heaven to the right hand of the Father and thus introduces our perfected human nature into the Godhead.
At the same time that the glorified Christ enters Heaven as one of us He does so also as priest and victim. His eternal priesthood is the full and spotless sacrifice of his life, His blood on our behalf, this is an eternal sacrifice. It is the offering of Love and if there is a single moment when this offering is not being poured out then communion is broken and lost. In the Ascension the offering of Himself upon the cross is presented in heaven on our behalf to the Father on the heavenly altar. And the Father receives the sacrifice of this Man who is His eternal Son and is pleased with it and our peace is made with God because we have been cleansed of sin and made anew.
It is very important that we give our attention to this lofty dogma of Christ’s ascension. By doing so it draws our eyes upward to heaven and the eternal kingdom which is your true home and for which this life is only a preparation.
St. Paul tells us to set our minds on things above. What do you think He means? What is above that we should attend to if not the Ascended Christ Himself our elder brother and the first fruits among many brethren. It would not be a stretch to say that our devotion to this feast is a fulfilment of St. Paul’s admonition to set our minds on things above.
Why does He not immediately send the Spirit upon His ascent, but makes us wait 10 days in anticipation? For the purpose of engendering desire for Him. Our salvation begins and is sustained not only by faith but also eros, desire for God. Our hearts grow cold and our affections wander, but He is merciful and long-suffering and works all things to cause our desire to spring up for Him. May we also prepare for the out-pouring of the Spirit as the apostles and the Mother of God did in those 10 days, for the Spirit who comes fills us with all joy.
Saint Gregory Palamas on the feast of the Ascension:
“Neither an angel nor a human being, but the incarnate Lord himself came and saved us, being made like us for our sake while remaining unchanged as God. In the same way as he came down, not changing place but condescending to us, so he returns once more, not moving as God but enthroning on high our human nature which he had assumed… As we lift up our hearts to him, we shall behold the great spectacle of our nature united forever with the fire of divinity. And laying aside everything to do with the coats of skin in which we were clothed because of the transgression, let us stand on holy ground, each one of us marking out his/her own holy ground through virtue and steadfast inclination to God.”