Ascent to Heaven is Humankind’s Ultimate Goal
Feast of the Ascension
Acts of the Holy Apostles 1:1-12; Luke 24:36-53
"Touch Me and know, for the spirit does not have flesh and bones, but I, you see, do." (Luke 24,39)
These words convince us that we are in the true faith, because from the beginning we recognize the ascension of Jesus Christ to heaven - in a body, albeit in a spiritualized body, but still a body. Today's “scribes” (Jehovah's Witnesses and their ilk) teach the opposite - that Christ's body remained on earth, and He ascended only in spirit.
Even before His suffering, the Lord affirmed: "I came forth from the Father, and I came into the world. And again I leave the world and go to the Father" (John 16:28). Therefore, the Ascension is not mere chance, but the final chapter of the incarnation of God in a human body. The Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man with a human body, ascended to heaven and, as we state in our Creed, according to the affirmation in the Holy Scriptures (Luke 22:69; Mark 14:62; 16:19) "sat down at the right hand of God."
Accordingly, Jesus Christ raised our human body to God and sanctified it. The first man - Adam - due to disobedience to God, lost paradise and union with God, and the last - Christ - due to obedience to the Father, united people with God. Christ placed human nature on the throne of Divine glory.
And thus the Lord opened heaven to all people for union with God. Living on earth, we achieve spiritual union with God - through the union of our souls. But Christ promised his disciples and followers:
"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).
Christ ascended to heaven to be our patron-protector before God. For this reason He sent the Holy Spirit after ten days to give people, through the holy apostles, a source of eternal sanctification, strength and union with God.
We, who were baptized into Christ, "united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection," (Romans 6:5), and thus we will be united with the ascended Lord, who sits "at the right hand of the power of God." (Luke 22:69)
Christ is the "firstborn among the dead" who has risen, just as He is the firstborn among those who ascended to heaven to the Heavenly Father. However, we never forget that having ascended to heaven bodily, He through the Holy Spirit, through the Sacraments of sanctification is with us "every day until the end of the age." (Matthew 28:20)
Christ, having ascended to heaven, indicated the ultimate, final goal of our human life. Ascended to heaven, Christ became equally close and accessible to all nations, whom He made equal in grace and mercy for salvation, sending the same grace of the Holy Spirit to all the apostles. (Acts 2:1-11)
Amen.
Very Rev. Fr. Taras Slavchenko
Taras Slavchenko was born on March 8, 1918 in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region in Ukraine. After graduating from school and the Pedagogical College, he entered the language and literature faculty of the Scientific Pedagogical Institute. Having successfully completed it in 1938, he served as a teacher in a secondary school.