Meditations on the Glorious Feast of the Ascension
Meditations on the Glorious Feast of the Ascension¹
The Church celebrates the Feast of the Ascension next Thursday, and we would like to meditate together on this feast in its spiritual meanings, so that we may celebrate it in depth and in understanding of what it contains of implications…
Christ spent forty days with His disciples after the Resurrection, and on the fortieth day He bid them farewell and promised them that they would receive power when the Holy Spirit came upon them (Acts 1:8).
And when He had said this, He was taken up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, two angels stood by them and said, “Why do you stand gazing up into heaven?… This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go…” (Acts 1:9–11).
So what do we learn from this Ascension?
1 – Christ did not leave us in His Ascension
The Lord Christ was with the disciples in the body… then He ascended from them, but He did not leave them… Rather, He said to them, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20).
He also said to them, “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:20).
Thus, He is with them; He did not leave them. And the Book of Revelation presents to us a moving image of the Lord Christ in the midst of the seven churches, and in His right hand seven stars, which are the angels of the churches (Rev. 2:1).
Christ is with the Church on a level higher than the level of the senses and higher than the level of the visible things… We do not see Him in the body but believe in His presence with us through faith, and faith is the assurance of things not seen (Heb. 11:1).
In Christ’s Ascension He disappeared from the eyes of the disciples… but He did not disappear from their spirits, for it was disappearance and not separation… It is a process of weaning the senses, so that the spirit may be nourished by faith, and not remain under the control of the senses.
Before the disciples matured spiritually, He allowed them to see and touch, living dependent on the senses of the body… but after their maturity and after the coming of the Spirit upon them, let them then behold by faith.
As though He were saying, “You have no need now to see Me in the body. You are now in a stage of maturity; you see Me in the spirit.” And truly, in this maturity the disciples never felt that Christ had left them. So let this thought be in our hearts.
Another meaning we meditate on in the Feast of the Ascension is:
2 – The Glorified Body of the Ascension
The Lord Jesus Christ ascended to heaven with a glorified body, rising upward freely, not subjected to the laws of earthly gravity.
It is a body without the heaviness of matter that pulls downward… but rather with another glorified nature able to ascend upward.
Truly, the Lord Christ rose with a glorified body. He was able to come out of the sealed tomb, and He was able to enter the upper room while its doors were shut (John 20:16–26). But the disciples were not yet certain of the glory of this body, because they thought they were seeing a spirit, and because they touched Him, and because He condescended and ate with them (Luke 24:37–43).
But in the Ascension, they entered into the depth of faith in this glorified body, which drew their eyes upward, so that the angels said to them, “Why do you stand gazing up into heaven?” (Acts 1:11).
And the Apostle delights us with his announcement to us that we shall receive a likeness of this glory of Christ, since we shall rise from the dead in “the likeness of His glorious body” (Phil. 3:21).
He explains this in detail in the Resurrection chapter (1 Cor. 15), how our mortal body will put on immortality, and the corruptible will put on incorruption, and we will take off the earthly, natural body to put on a spiritual, luminous, heavenly body (1 Cor. 15:43–50).
And in the image of the Ascension, we received a pledge of the glorified body raised to heaven.
And this remains our hope—that God will deliver us from matter and its effects. And that our body will not remain material forever, but we shall put on the spiritual body through the redemption of our bodies (Rom. 8:23).
But what is the way leading to the glory that our bodies will receive? The way leading to the glory of our bodies is first death, and then resurrection… For this reason, we do not fear death. By death we are freed from the materiality of the body, and by resurrection we put on the spirituality of the glorified body.
If we remain in this body, we remain in matter. But if we take off this matter through death, we shall be worthy of the spirituality of the body in eternity. Who among us desires to remain in the dust without being changed to glory?!
Another meaning we understand from the Ascension is:
3 – The end of the phrase “He emptied Himself”
In the glorious Ascension, the phrase “He emptied Himself” said of the Lord Christ (Phil. 2:7) has ended. He is now in glory…
All that His human body suffered of insults, pains, and weaknesses has ended, since Christ ascended on the clouds and sat at the right hand of His Father (Acts 7:55).
And thus St. Stephen saw Him. Or as St. Paul said of Him, “He sat at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:3), and “sat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens” (Heb. 8:1).
What does His Ascension to heaven mean? What does His sitting at the right hand of God or the right hand of His Father mean?
God does not ascend nor descend, for He is present everywhere. But the Ascension here pertains to the humanity, as is said in the Gregorian Liturgy, “And at Your Ascension into the heavens bodily.”
And God has no right or left, for He is unlimited. But the right hand symbolizes power and righteousness…
So the phrase “He sat at the right hand of His Father” means He sat in the glory of His Father, on His Father’s throne, and will no longer appear in weakness as He did in His first coming, when He could be insulted and crucified. Rather, when He comes again, He will come in great glory with His angels (Matt. 25:31), and He will come “with ten thousands of His saints” (Jude 14).
Before His second coming, Saul of Tarsus saw Him in glory (Acts 9:3).
And John saw Him, “His face was like the sun shining in its strength” (Rev. 1:16).
And the phrase “He sat” means stability and permanence; He is in His glory forever.
He will not come in His second coming to bear the sins of the world (John 1:29) or be made sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21) as happened in His first coming. Rather, He will come in absolute righteousness, leading the army of the righteous, the army of the conquerors…
And just as He ascended on the clouds of heaven, He will also come on the clouds of heaven.
And the cloud, since the Old Testament, symbolizes the glory of God and the divine presence.
This is clear in the journeys and resting of the Tabernacle of Meeting, and in the dedication of Solomon’s Temple (Num. 9:20–22; Exod. 40:34; 1 Kings 8:10–11). This was also what happened in the glory of God over the Ark of the Covenant.
And the glory of Christ in His Ascension and in His coming has a spiritual meaning…
4 – Benefits for our sense of the glory of God
Our faith in the glory of God implants in our souls the fear of God, reverence, and awe.
And this fear is the beginning of wisdom and the beginning of the spiritual path. Those who do not have the fear of God may be led to carelessness and indifference, sinning without shame…
The Jews misused the love of God and His longsuffering. They misused the meekness of Christ to insult Him and crucify Him. It was necessary for all to know the glory of the Lord in order to believe. And this glory appeared in the Ascension and in many visions.
The glory of God leads to reverence, and this leads to caution, watchfulness, purity, and repentance.
Just as we see the meek Christ entering Jerusalem on a donkey, the colt of a donkey, we also see Him on the cloud, so that we may think of Him as we ought.
The loving, merciful, compassionate God who spoke to Elijah the prophet in a still small voice is the same God who sits above the Cherubim, who walks on the wings of the wind, before whose glory the angels cover their faces.
We need, in the story of the Ascension, to perceive something of the glory of God and fear Him, so that we may be humbled before Him and become contrite, for we are dust and ashes…
For this reason, in our prayers we lift our eyes to heaven and pray to our Father “who is in the heavens,” though He is everywhere. But the phrase “who is in the heavens” reminds us of His glory and reminds us of Christ who ascended into heaven.
Thus we remember the mighty, exalted God for whom heaven is His throne and the earth His footstool (Matt. 5:34–35). And our contrition in prayer before the majesty of God benefits us greatly.
And in the Lord’s Ascension to heaven we say to Him: The earth is not the place where You rest Your head, but it is the footstool of Your feet. Indeed, it is humility from You, O Lord, to make it a footstool for Your feet!
Truly this earth does not deserve that You tread upon it with Your feet. And we, being from the dust of this earth—what then are we before You? Nothing…
And when we humble ourselves before Him in this way, we may be lifted up to Him, for “he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Matt. 23:12).
Among the benefits of Christ’s glory in His Ascension is that it was a response to those who were offended by His crucifixion!
Those who mocked, saying: “If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross and we will believe in You” (Matt. 27:40–43).
And His Ascension was also a strengthening of the faith of His disciples, who had faltered at the time of the crucifixion and during His arrest. And the glory of Christ in His Ascension was a reply to the Jews, who saw the cross as a stumbling block, and to the Greeks, who saw it as foolishness. But we who believe in the Ascension see in it the power of God (1 Cor. 1:23).
And this Ascension was an affirmation of the glory they had seen in Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration but had forgotten:
Thus we believe not only in Christ who was born in a manger, but also in Christ who ascended on the cloud into heaven. And we believe not only in Jesus the crucified, but also in Him seated at the right hand of His Father in the throne of majesty in the heights.
In this way we take a complete understanding of Christ—birth and crucifixion, completed by the glories of Transfiguration, Resurrection, and Ascension…
And when we remember His glory in the Ascension, we also remember His words to Nicodemus: “No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven” (John 3:13).
So heaven was not new to Him in His Ascension; rather, it is His original homeland. Likewise His sitting at the right hand of the Father.
For this reason He said to His disciples: “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).
Thus all understood the humility of His Incarnation and His self-emptying in light of His true greatness and His divine Sonship.
Another meaning we understand from the Ascension is:
5 – The Ascension as a process of weaning for the disciples
The disciples lived with the Lord in complete reliance on Him. He did everything, and they did nothing—mere observers.
He was the one who preached, who served, who drew people to the Kingdom. He was the one who performed miracles, solved people’s problems, and answered their questions. He was the one who faced the plots and criticisms of the objectors.
As for the disciples, they contemplated His work.
Their discipleship was merely walking after Him and learning from Him.
But in His Ascension, He left them to preach and teach and baptize, and to bear the cross and suffer for His sake…
The Ascension was an announcement of the end of the training period and the beginning of the ministry.
For this reason He said to them just before His Ascension: “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me” (Acts 1:8). And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). And He also said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them and teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19–20).
Christ’s weaning of His disciples did not at all mean abandoning them, but rather declaring their growth, maturity, and bearing of responsibility.
Like a father who teaches his son to swim, leaving him for a moment to swim alone while watching him and intervening to save him if necessary; like an eagle teaching its young to fly, leaving them to fly while watching and carrying them on its wings when needed.
Christ spent forty days with His disciples speaking to them of things pertaining to the Kingdom…
But He did not extend the forty days… They were enough. Now He ascends and leaves them to minister.
It was not sudden; they still had ten more days to prepare themselves and to wait for the coming of the Spirit upon them.
With the forty days ended the period of preparation for ministry, and the period of faith by the senses.
So minister, each one saying: I feel, O Lord, that You are with me. I feel that Your word is in my mouth. I will minister, but not by my humanity; rather by Your Spirit; You give me what I speak. And I will do miracles, but by Your power.
There is a lesson in the Ascension:
6 – Our rising with Christ
This is expressed by the Lord’s saying, “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself” (John 12:32).
Christ was lifted up in His crucifixion, drawing people into the fellowship of His sufferings. And He was lifted up in His Ascension, drawing all into the fellowship of His glory. And it remained for the disciples to work and enter into the fellowship of sufferings, to be worthy also of the fellowship of glory.
And He promised, in His lifting up, that He was going to prepare a place for us.
He said, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:3).
In His second coming He will catch up the Church on earth and gather the departed so that they may rise and ascend with Him on the clouds… And St. Paul summed up this glory to come with the words: “And thus we shall always be with the Lord.”
Thus the Lord was the firstfruits of those who ascend. He ascended into heaven, and He will make us ascend with Him.
He said to His disciples, “You will be with Me,” not on earth but in heaven. But on earth, prepare yourselves to be in heaven.
I was with you when I emptied Myself. You will be with Me when I enter into My glory.
Whoever understands this truth, that he will be with the Lord in the likeness of His glorified body, must honor himself and not abase it by sin, but prepare it to inherit the kingdom.
This glory with the Lord in the clouds and in heaven will not be inherited by those attached to dust, matter, earth, and the love of the world.
7 – Counsel for the Feast of the Ascension
A – In the Ascension, our thoughts must ascend upward.
We meditate on the heaven into which Christ ascended… and on His sitting at the right hand of the Father. In our meditation on heaven, we remember the saying of the Lord, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Let your treasure therefore be heaven. Let each person train himself on the blessing of the Ascension in his life.
Let him ascend from the material level to the spiritual level. Let his desires and longings ascend from the level of the flesh to the love of God.
B – In the Ascension we meditate on the virtue of waiting for the Lord, as the disciples waited.
Christ ascended to heaven and promised the disciples the coming of the Holy Spirit, and they remained waiting ten days. They did not see the Lord with them, nor had the Spirit yet come upon them. But they believed in the divine promise, and the spiritual person waits in faith.
No doubt the Lord was with the disciples, and the Spirit was with them, but they had not yet seen His manifest work among them, which happened on Pentecost, nor the permanent strength that they received.
Wait for the Lord. Be strong, and let your heart be strengthened, and wait for the Lord (Ps. 27:14).
Wait for the work of the Spirit in you.
Be assured that the ten days the disciples waited were for their good. They were a holy period for preparing the heart for the coming of the Spirit within it.
Perhaps in the next two issues I may be able, by the grace of the Lord, to speak to you about the Holy Spirit and His work in you and His coming.
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An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III, published in Watani newspaper on 19-5-1985.
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