Their experience reflects the
failure of so much Christianity in our culture to embody with integrity the
good news that we celebrate during this season of the Ascension, which invites
us to participate personally in the fulfillment of our humanity in the risen
and ascended Savior.The Lord went
up into heaven forty days after His resurrection. In Him, humanity and divinity
are united in one Person; He rises into heaven as the God-Man. His Ascension
shows that 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 us into that glory
with Him. The Ascension is a brilliant
icon of our salvation, for it makes clear that our Lord has raised us in all
dimensions of our existence—not only from the tomb, not only from Hades—but
into the eternal life of the Holy Trinity.
In the ascended Christ, we truly become participants in God, partakers
of the divine nature by grace even as we live and breathe in a world that so
often forgets the One Who spoke it into existence.
The Ascension reminds us that
Orthodoxy is not an “I’ll Fly Away” religion that excludes holiness and union
with the Lord from life as know it. The
point is not to escape our bodies or any dimension of earthly reality, but to
offer every aspect of our life to Christ for blessing such that we already experience
the life of heaven even in a world that increasingly thinks of God as
irrelevant. He ascended with His
glorified body, and we “look for the resurrection of the dead and life of the
world to come” as the ultimate fulfillment of His good creation.
The Ascension also reminds us that
Jesus Christ is not merely a great teacher or example or even an angel or
lesser god. As the Fathers of the First
Ecumenical 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. 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. Only One who is truly both God
and human can bring us into the life of God as our Savior.
Perhaps some today find Christianity
irrelevant to their lives because they have never seriously encountered the Orthodox
experience of Jesus Christ. Many in our
culture seem to think of the Lord as little more than a good teacher and
example with a message not that much different from that of secular and other
religious figures. We do not have to be
geniuses to figure out that it is possible to be a nice person and a good
citizen without being a Christian or religious at all.
Like Arius, many throughout the
centuries have made Christ in their own image as an exemplary human being
according to whatever standard they found appealing in their time and
place. While that might be useful for
some cultural or political agendas, such interpretations quickly fade when people
figure out that they can achieve their worldly ends quite well without a little
religious icing on the cake of what is really important to them. At best, this attitude produces a wimpy faith
that does not last and most people will not take seriously.
In contrast, Orthodoxy maintains the
ancient faith of the Church that Jesus Christ, the God-Man, has conquered death
in His resurrection, ascended into heaven, and made us participants by grace in
the life of the Holy Trinity. We must
never seek to water-down our faith in the Savior in an attempt to make
following Him popular, easy, or fully in harmony with our culture. Should it be surprising that to ascend with
Him to a life of holiness in our corrupt world will demand discipline,
sacrifice, and being out of step with many trends? Would it not be strange if offering our lives
for blessing to the crucified, risen, and ascended Lord were as easy and
ultimately insignificant as simply being nice or fitting in well with social
norms?
Sometimes looking at other cultures
helps us see our own situation more clearly.
To this very day, many Christians in the Middle East (Orthodox, as well
as others) lay down their lives as martyrs for their faith in Jesus
Christ. In that region and in other parts
of the world, our brothers and sisters suffer persecution, abuse, and
harassment from oppressive governments and hostile groups that want to
eliminate them and their faith. Communism
and fascism made countless martyrs during the 20th century. The same is true of the Armenian, Greek, and
Assyrian genocides at the hands of the Turks that began a hundred years ago.
Few in our culture recognize that many
millions of Christians have died for their faith over the last century. Thousands
continue to do so each year. Like the
martyrs of the early Church, they do not go to their deaths out of loyalty to a
mere human teacher or an example of how to be a moral or pleasant person. They certainly do not do so because being a
Christian brings them any kind of cultural or worldly advantage. No, they simply refuse to abandon a Lord Whom
they know as God, Who has conquered death, ascended into heaven, and Who has
strengthened them to share in His eternal life even as they literally follow Him
to the cross.
Remember that, in a matter of days, Christ’s
disciples went from total despair and defeat at His crucifixion to the
astounding joy of the empty tomb and the amazing sight of His Ascension. These
were life-changing experiences that gave them the strength to sacrifice their
own lives for the Lord. Generations of
martyrs do not give their lives for even the best teachers and good examples, but
the power of the risen and ascended Son of God continues in the Church,
especially in the witness of the martyrs to this day who share in a victory
that is not of this world.
The early Christian teacher
Tertullian wrote that “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the
Church.” In ways that may seem
surprising, people in the early history of the faith were drawn by the witness
of those who gave up their lives for Christ.
Perhaps they sensed that something different, something new, something
truly worth living and dying for had led the martyrs to their great
sacrifice. That is apparently what they
wanted in their own lives. Many people still
do today.
As we celebrate the Ascension, we
should recognize that what we have to offer the world is our witness that the
crucified, risen, and ascended Lord has brought us into the eternal life that
He shares with His Father and the Holy Spirit.
His divine glory shines in the witness of the martyrs to this day, and
must shine through us in ways that go beyond what even the best teacher,
example, or political activist could inspire. We must demonstrate with integrity that He is worth
living and dying for in a culture where so many make the world their god. We will do so by ascending with Him to lives
of brilliant holiness even as our feet remain planted firmly on the
ground.
He calls us to become living icons in
ways that attract others to the joy, blessedness, and fulfillment of the
Kingdom. He enables us to live in this
world as those who already have experienced its salvation. He commands us to radiate the divine glory in
which He has made us participants. If we
do so, we will bear witness to the truth of the Ascension, and many in our culture
will be drawn to our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ for the first time. And by His
grace, they will see that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
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