Ascension 2002

... that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, .. [Eph 1:18]

In his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul tells his new converts to the faith that he, Paul, constantly prays for them, prays that the Father of Glory, God the Father may enlighten them with the Spirit, so that they might truly come to appreciate the greatness of their vocation, the splendor of their calling by Christ, which gives to them an inexpressible hope for riches beyond our comprehension, the glorious inheritance which belongs to God's saints. The Church chooses this passage for her celebration and commemoration of the Ascension of Jesus, who has taken our humanity to the heavenly place beside the Father,

far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come..[1:21]

Jesus' Ascension is a mystery of our faith, a mystery in which we are involved, as we are in all His mysteries, for everything He does is for us, for those who will be one with Him forever in our humanity, by His incarnation, and in His divinity, by His grace in us. Jesus ascends to the very throne of God, to the right hand of the Father, which means to the domain of the Triune God. His humanity, which He has taken from us, for our sake, has ascended to the heights of God, and He has gone ahead to prepare a place for us, in the Triune God, far above every "rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named [in this world or the world to come]."

There are so many aspects to this mystery of our faith, the Ascension of Jesus, our brother and our God, to the right hand of the Father, but Paul's prayer immediately focuses our attention on the hope that we have as a result of His Ascension and His sending of the Spirit. We believe that God has redeemed us from eternal damnation, the death of all deaths, by the death and resurrection of Jesus. By dying He destroyed death in all its meanings, but above all its meaning of everlasting loss of God and happiness. By rising He restored our life in all its meanings, but above all in the meaning of our life in God, the life that is eternal joy and happiness.

But here in the feast of the Ascension we see the hope that is ours beyond every hope that man as man could possibly even imagine. There is a danger in our delight in the mystery of our redemption from death, and our rising to new life. The danger is that we become so satisfied just to have escaped eternal death and unhappiness, and just to have been given a hope of living for ever in happiness, that we fail to appreciate just what God has in store for those who truly love Him. Paul speaks of this hope many times, but none more eloquently than in 1 Cor 2:9:

But as it is written: "What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him,"

In both these passages, Ephesians 1 and 1 Corinthians 2 Paul is struggling to direct our attention to the unspeakable, ineffable mystery that is our destiny in Christ. We might be satisfied just to live on in some sense with God, and escape the pains of hell. But Paul is struggling desperately to raise our sights, to make us understand in some partial way what cannot be understood fully in this world. Where Jesus has ascended, as man, He has called us to follow. The destiny of every man who is in Christ by faith and baptism, and who loves Christ in the Spirit, is to follow where He has gone, as man, right into the very heart of the Triune God. He went to prepare a place for us there, in God, in heaven, for in the final analysis, God is our heaven, and our heaven is in God.

Beyond pointing to this hope for an eternal life in God, at God's right hand, in Christ to be sure, Paul cannot take us further. Just as we can know that God exists, but know only by faith that God loves us and has called us to be His children, so also we can only know by faith that God has called us in Christ to His right hand, has divinized us in Christ by His grace, but we cannot really see what this means until we see it, live it in Eternity. This divinization, where we partake of the divine nature itself, by grace and glory, is promised and spoken about in different ways in the New Testament. But it is the object of our hope, based upon our faith in Jesus Christ, and nothing less must take its place in our hearts.

The Apostles stand there looking up after Jesus has disappeared from their sight, until they are told by the heavenly messenger to head back to town and do as Jesus has told them. But they will always be looking up to where Jesus is, keeping [their] eyes fixed on Jesus, [Heb 12:2], that is, in their prayer, in their worship, in their hearts. For as Paul says, If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. [Col 3:1] This is our hope we are keeping our eyes fixed on, and it is this hope that drives us on in this world to accomplish whatever the Lord has called us to accomplish for Him, and in Him. If we lose sight of this hope, we will inevitably lose interest in the work He has sent us to do for him. It was true for the apostle and it is true for us.

Whenever we leave the Church, after rasing our minds and hearts to Jesus in worship of the Triune God, the hope all this holds up for us is what we must take back into the world, as the Apostles did that day from the Mount of Olives. How can we go forth with heads down, with no joy in our hearts, like men without hope. We have been called to the right hand of God, to share His life and kingship over creation forever. Creation is ours, God is ours, we are sharers in a royal destiny, the greatest of all sovereignties, that of the very kingdom of God. We are all like the hidden prince or princess in the fairy tale who is in the world but not recognized. We are like that, already crowned with grace, and one day to be crowned with glory at God's right hand. If that does not fill our heart with joy, there is something wrong with our heart, or something lacking to our faith. In Christ we have conquered, in Christ we will reign forever. That is our faith, and that is the hope to which we have all been called.