The Ascension

"...and ascended into heaven with the same body and sat at the right hand of the Father."

Hopefully, you recognize these words, which we recite every Sunday during the Divine Liturgy when we proclaim our faith in the Nicene Creed.  We mark this event during Ascension, always falls 40 days after the Resurrection of our Lord. 

It is clear that the Nicene Creed generally follows the history of the life of our Lord as told in the Bible.  Our Lord appeared to the disciples after the Resurrection and before the Ascension.  He appeared in this interval in a body that, though recognizable, was no longer subject to the laws of nature.  Thus our Lord's walking on water and his Transfiguration foreshadowed a mode or manner of being in which he would exist after the Resurrection. 

Before his Resurrection he was at one place at a time.  After that event this condition no longer applied.  While he appears to people who are at a particular place and time, he is not at any particular place at any given time.  Distance and physical objects are not in the way of his presence.  And as evidence of his real and physical presence, he makes himself attainable to those who believe in his Resurrection. 

Inasmuch as he appeared and was seen as the same, Christ had the same body.  But this new body is different; it is spiritual, celestial, and glorious.  It is with this spiritual, celestial, glorious body that he ascended into heaven.

The story of the Ascension is told with eloquent simplicity by St. Luke, in the first chapter of the Book of Acts: "And he said to them ... you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses. ... And when he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight." This, then, was the last earthly appearance of our Lord and the beginning of his invisible presence.

Up to the Ascension Jesus Christ was among his disciples as someone distinct from them.  He was, to them, another, although divine, person.  After the Ascension, because he was present yet invisible, he could be distributed among his disciples.  His presence would become a call for action, a moving force with the coming of the Holy Spirit upon them. 

Jesus Christ remains a distinct person, an outside source of power who, through the Holy Spirit, moves us from within.  Christ is in the Church, yet in heaven, namely beyond and above the Church. 

To sum up, our Lord went to heaven making it clear that he had come from heaven.  He made it possible for the world to be reconciled with God.  This possibility exists to the extent that there are men and women who follow the Lord in his true Church.  It is the duty of all true Christians to see that Christ's work of salvation is completed, for it will be completed in due time.

-- Adapted from Dr. Hagop Nersoyan's book, The Faith of the Armenian Church.