Homily for the Feast of the Ascension in the Orthodox Church

         

           Sometimes we are all set our sights too low, expecting too little of ourselves and others.  When we do so, we sell ourselves short and do a disservice not only to ourselves but to everyone around us.  When we aim low, we can’t expect to achieve high goals.  The season of the Ascension is a powerful antidote to such low expectations, for it reveals the great glory and dignity that Jesus Christ has given us.  Through His Ascension, we are raised with Him literally to the heights of the heavenly Kingdom.

            Forty days after His resurrection, our Lord ascended into heaven.   In Him, humanity and divinity are united in one Person; He goes up into heaven as the God-Man.   The Son shares in the glory that He had with the Father and the Holy Spirit before the creation of the world.  And He brings our humanity into that glory with Him.  There is perhaps no more powerful sign of our salvation than the Ascension, for it makes clear that our Lord has raised us—not only from the tomb, not only from hades—but into the eternal life of the Holy Trinity.  We truly become participants in God, partakers of the divine nature by grace, in our ascended Lord.

            And we are reminded by the Ascension that Jesus Christ is not merely a great teacher or example or even an angel or lesser god.  As the Fathers of the Council of Nicaea proclaimed, He is light of light, very God of very God, of one essence with the Father, the only begotten Son of God.   For only One who is truly divine and eternal can ascend into heaven and bring us into the divine, eternal life of the Holy Trinity.  That is why the Council of Nicaea rejected the teaching of Arius, who did not think that the Son was fully divine.   That is why the Orthodox Church has always disagreed with those who deny our Lord’s full divinity or His full humanity.  For only One who is truly both God and human can bring humans into the life of God.

            Unfortunately, some have set their sights too low in how they view Jesus Christ and themselves.  If we want a Savior who merely teaches and models a good life or advances a political agenda, we might become a bit more moral by listening to Him.  But human teachers and examples cannot conquer death and cannot raise us with them into eternal life.  There apparently always have been, and continue to be, those who want a Lord in their own image:  a teacher of secret spiritual truths to a select few; a social or political activist of whatever ideology; or a rabbi or philosopher who speaks with wisdom.  Movies, documentaries, and books come out all the time with the claim to have discovered a true or secret Jesus who is different from the Lord portrayed in Scripture and confessed in the Church. 

            But countless martyrs, including Jesus Christ’s disciples, did not go to their deaths out of loyalty to a mere human teacher.  They looked death in the eye and did not blink because they knew that their Lord was God, that He had conquered death and would share His victory with them in heaven.  In a matter of days, Christ’s disciples went from total despair and defeat at His crucifixion to the astounding joy of Pascha and Pentecost.  These were life-changing experiences that gave them the strength to sacrifice their own lives for the Lord.  Teachers and good examples die and are ultimately forgotten; generations of martyrs do not give their lives for them.  But the life of the risen and ascended Son of God continues in the Church, especially in the witness of the martyrs who share in a victory that is not of this world.

            Indeed, we all share in the eternal life of Christ through His Body, the Church.  The Son prayed to the Father that His followers “may be one as We are…that they all may be one, as You, Father are in Me, and I in You; that they may also be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.  And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one…”

            Here is a very high, very exalted view of what it means to be a human being in the image and likeness of God.  In Christ’s Body, the Church, we are to be one in Him, showing forth the unity of holiness and love that are characteristic of the Holy Trinity.  Christ has given us His glory, a share in life eternal, the life to which He has ascended as the Savior of the world.   And that glory, that eternal life, is not an individual undertaking; it is the life of unity in Christ, of His Body, of which we are all members by baptism. 

            Unfortunately, we have all fallen short of the life in Christ.  The truth is that we often would rather not ascend in Him to a life of holiness.   We prefer to do things which are beneath us, which are not fitting for those created in the image and likeness of God, those who are called to live the life of heaven even now.   Instead of dwelling on what is true, noble, just, and pure, we too often dwell on what inflames our passions, our self-centered desires.  Instead of recognizing that our salvation is a life together in the Body of Christ, we try to live as isolated individuals, continuing the division from one another that has beset humanity since Adam and Eve.

            It might be possible to follow the guidance of a teacher in isolation from others, on our own terms, according to whatever private interpretations seem right to us.  But it is impossible to embrace the fullness of life in our Risen and Ascended Lord in isolation or as though our faith means whatever we want it to mean.  We can interpret the words of a merely human teacher however we want, but the One Who has conquered death and ascended into heaven requires something different.  The point is not to make Him in our image, to water Him down into someone Whom we can accept and understand on our own terms.  Instead, the point is to fall before Him in worship, to accept in humility the great blessing of the resurrected, ascended life which He gives us, and to live faithfully in the unity of the Church as we grow in Him.

            Let us celebrate the Ascension, then, by embracing the great dignity that is ours in the God-Man Who has gone up to heaven.  Let us pay close attention to our thoughts, words, and deeds, and stop doing what is beneath us as those whose are called to the glory of the Kingdom.  Let us make of our life in the Church an icon of the Holy Trinity, a Communion of love and holiness.

            Yes, we really can live this way because we are not simply following the teachings of a human being; instead, we are participating even now in the eternal life of the One Who has conquered death, the tomb, and hades, and taken our humanity into heaven.  If Jesus Christ can do that, we may put no limits on what He can do with our lives, our families, our marriages, our friendships, our relationships with other people, or anything else.  For the Lord has ascended into heaven, and He will take us with Him if we will only embrace—with humility and repentance-- the great glory that He has brought to us as those created in His image and likeness.

            This is not a message for a few select souls, but good news for the entire world, for you and for me, no matter how we have fallen short of fulfilling God’s purposes in our lives.  We are all called to ascend in Jesus Christ to a life of holiness and to the blessedness of the Kingdom of Heaven.  The only question is whether we will answer that call.