My beloved brothers and sisters in Our Risen Lord, God, and Savior JESUS CHRIST,
CHRIST IS RISEN! TRULY HE IS RISEN! ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! ΑΛΗΘΩΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ!
THE GREAT FEAST DAY OF THE HOLY ASCENSION
OF OUR LORD, GOD, AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST
Forty days after His Resurrection Christ ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN, where He had been previously, according to His own words to the Disciples before His Passion: “Does this offend you? What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before?” (John 6:61-62). Of course this does not mean that Christ, as God, was not in heaven during the time of His Incarnation, but that He would go up even with His Human flesh. Moreover, His coming down from heaven is meant as Divine condescension and not as a change of place.
In the time between His Resurrection and Ascension He appeared many times to His Disciples, to whom He revealed the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, according to the words of Saint Luke: “to whom he also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3).
The feast of the Lord’s Ascension has great meaning and importance for the Christian and spiritual life, because it is connected with the THEOSIS (DEIFICATION) of every person. In what follows, presenting the central Christological points of this Great Feast of the Lord,
Let us see exactly what Holy Scripture says about the Divine Ascension. The Old Testament makes prophecies about this Great Event, and the New Testament presents it. The Prophet Ezekiel saw a vision, which certainly refers to Christ’s Ascension: “Then the glory of the Lord departed from the threshold of the temple and stood over the Cherubim. And the Cherubim lifted their wings and mounted up from the earth in my sight” (Ezekiel 10: 18-19).
In the teaching of Christ Himself, and in His speech to the Disciples before His Passion He said the following: “I came forth from the Father and have come into the world. Again, I leave the world and go to the Father” (John 16:28). And in another situation Christ gave assurance: “No one has ascended to heaven but the one who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of man who is in heaven” (John 3:13).
In the Holy Scripture it is seen clearly that Christ went up to Heaven with His Body, because, as we know from the teaching of our Church, the Divine Nature has never been separated from the human Human Nature. Christ’s Ascension took place in stillness, for only the Apostles were present, but in spite of these things it became known to all the ends of the world. No one was unaware of it. This shows that all the great happenings take place in stillness and silence. While the REGENERATION OF MAN seems to be unseen by the eyes of the secular world, nevertheless it causes the greatest astonishment in the whole universe. There is no greater proof of the existence of God than the lives of the Saints. Most of them were unknown to the world, but the grace of God made them known to the whole universe and to all the ages.
Saint Luke gives us a detail that is characteristic, because it shows the way in which Christ went up to heaven. When He was leading His Disciples as far as Bethany, “He lifted up His hands, and blessed them, and it came to pass, while He blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up into heaven” (Luke 24:50-51). He did not bless them and then go up into heaven, but He was blessing them as He ascended. “As He blessed them He parted from them and was taken up into heaven.” He began to bless them, GIVING THEM POWER FOR SUCCESS IN DOING THE COMMANDMENTS. By this He showed that He would always continue blessing His own, granting them His abundant and infinite grace.
This image is presented in holy iconography by Christ enthroned blessing the people. Essentially it is a matter of the truth that Christ is King and Lord of Heaven and earth, it is He Who sends grace and blessing to people. He is the only blessed one, Who by His blessing, strengthens and makes worthy of the blessing those who are blessed. The holy icon of the Ascension is splendid. The Holy Disciples were astonished and watched with joy and wonder as He ascended into heaven. Saint Luke reports: “Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up… and while they looked steadfastly towards heaven as He went up…” (Acts 1:9-10).
The posture, apart from the sense of the grandeur of the image of the ascended Christ also has the meaning that the Christians have the eye of their soul, the NOUS, FIXED ON HEAVEN. It is in this light that we should view the Liturgical exhortation of the priest “LET US LIFT UP OUR HEARTS” or in the Divine Liturgy of the brother of God James, “LET US LIFT UP OUR NOUS AND HEARTS.” And this is important, because OUR CITIZENSHIP IS NOT ON EARTH, BUT IN HEAVEN, “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20). And in another place the Apostle Paul sends word: “Set your mind on things above, not in on things on the earth” (Colossians 3:2).
During the Event of the Ascension it is said that while the Holy Disciples were looking at Christ Ascending to Heaven, “a cloud hid Him from their sight”, Then two men “dressed in white” stood beside them and said that Christ would come back again in the same way” (Acts 1:9-11). Thus we have plenty of Angels at Christ’s Ascension, even with the type and shape of the cloud as well as the type of men who were wearing white clothing. Saint John Chrysostom says that this is natural, because if all the air is filled with Angels, it must have been filled much more with the Angelic powers on the day when Christ ascended into Heaven.
The Angels are SPIRITUAL CREATURES who were made by God and have a double function. The first is to glorify God unceasingly, as we see in may texts of the Old Testament, and the second from the verb to announce and indicates those who make things known, who convey the message of man’s salvation. The presence of the Angels at Christ’s Ascension was prophesied in the Old Testament. The Prophet Ezekiel saw a splendid sight: “While I watched, the Cherubim spread their wings and rose from the ground, and as they went the wheels went with them” (Ezekiel 10:19). And King David writes: “He mounted the Cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind” (Psalm 18:10). (Source: The Twelve Feasts of the Lord by Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos)
(To be continued)
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“Glory Be To GOD
For
All Things!”
– Saint John Chrysostomos
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With sincere agape in His Glorious and Divine Ascension,
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+ Father Goorge
The Eastern Orthodox Christian Ethos 