Ascension Eve
A Reading from the Acts of the Apostles:
In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
A Reflection by Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons (AD 130-200):
The Gospels could not possibly be either more or less in number than they are. Since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principal winds, while the Church is spread over all the earth, and the pillar and foundation of the Church is the gospel and the Spirit of life, it fittingly has four pillars, everywhere breathing out incorruption and revivifying mortals. From this it is clear that the Word, the maker of all things, He who sits upon the cherubim and sustains all things, being manifested among us, gave to us the gospel, fourfold in form but held together by one Spirit.
As David said, when asking for His coming, “O sitter upon the cherubim, show yourself.” (Ps. 80:1) For the cherubim have four faces, and their faces are images of the activity of the Son of God. For the first living creature, it (Rev. 4) says, was like a lion, signifying His active and princely and royal character; the second was like an ox, showing His sacrificial and priestly order; the third had a human face, indicating very clearly His coming in human guise; and the fourth was like a flying eagle, making plain the giving of the Spirit who broods over the Church. Now the Gospels, in which Christ is enthroned, are like these.
Against Heresies, vol. II, 8; as reprinted in For All the Saints.
Further Reflection:
Tonight is the Eve of the Ascension of Our Lord. For 40 days, we are told, the risen Christ appeared to apostles, disciples, family, friends, strangers, and even crowds. Throughout the Bible 40 is a symbolic number, pregnant with meaning; for indeed, the ancients knew that it takes roughly 40 weeks for a woman with child to come to term. And so the number 40, in the Bible, always represents a period of difficulty, struggle, and growth, which ultimately results in new life, new birth. Something is being born.
It is during this time that Jesus appears to James, the Brother of the Lord. Now, depending on your tradition, James was either His stepbrother, His half-brother, or His cousin. Regardless, he appears to be Jesus’ closest living male relative, who did not follow Jesus until after he had encountered his brother risen from the dead—at which point James the Just took over leadership of the church in Jerusalem, to whom even Sts Peter and Paul would defer.
At the end of 40 days, having laid the foundation for whatever comes next, the risen Christ ascended into heaven, into the Shekinah, the cloud of divine presence, and took His place at the right hand of the Father, there to rule as King of Kings and Sovereign Lord of All. But this is not merely His triumph; it is all of ours as well. For Jesus rules not to His own benefit, His own glory, but to prepare a place for us, a throne for us, the One True Kingdom of the One True King.
In the Christian East, the return of Christ to the Father is known as the Hallowing of Heaven, and it is every bit as astonishing as the Harrowing of Hell. For throughout the Hebrew Bible, heaven—the direct, unfettered presence of God—is imagined as a courtroom where the king sits in judgment. And every courtroom has an Accuser, a prosecuting attorney: the Satan, who forever lays our sin before us and before the judgment of God. But when Christ ascends into heaven, we are told, he casts out Satan, and He—He himself—stands as our Advocate, our defense attorney, our Paraclete.
And what’s more, He sends to us another Advocate, His own Holy Spirit, the presence of God within us, to defend and guide and forgive us here on earth. And so in the court of heaven, which has ever been barred to human beings, God is now our Judge; God is our Defender; and God is even the Spirit of Truth speaking as witness within us. And there is no Satan at all! There is none left to accuse. There is only mercy, white-hot and pure, poured forth from above; and the God who is our Father, +Son, and Holy Spirit, one Essence in Three realities—above us, around us, within us—all working in us His salvation, all working in us new life.
God in the flesh has risen to heaven. God in the Spirit will soon descend. And the fire He lights in our hearts, the Restoration begun in Him, will one day resurrect all the world.
In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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