Most of us memorized John 3:16 in church school. Those familiar words contain the whole of the mystery of God’s ineffable love for us: “God so loved the world that He gave His Only Son,” that through His sacrifice death might be conquered, and we might receive the gift of eternal life.
The great feast of Christ’s Resurrection, Holy Pascha, enables us to recall and to relive His victory over death. That victory becomes our own, however, only through the Ascension. For Christ’s Ascension marks the final step in God’s movement toward His fallen creatures. “No one has ascended into heaven,” Jesus tells His disciples, “except He who descended from heaven, the Son of Man” (Jn 3:13). If the Son of Man and Son of God “descended” from heaven, it was to become “incarnate”: to assume our fallen human nature, and as a human being to suffer, to die, and to rise from the dead, in order to vanquish death and restore our nature to its intended perfection.
Yet in order for that work to be fulfilled, He must “ascend” to His place of origin, bearing our human nature in Himself, in order to glorify it with Himself. This is the meaning of the kontakion of the Ascension in the Orthodox liturgy:
“When Thou didst fulfill the dispensation for our sake, and unite earth to heaven, Thou didst ascend in glory, O Christ our God, not being parted from those who love Thee, but remaining with them and crying, ‘I am with you and no one will be against you.’”
By virtue of His Ascension, Jesus the “Forerunner” has entered the heavenly sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, and has done so on our behalf (Heb 6:20). There as the great High Priest He serves an eternal Eucharist, a celebration of His triumphant victory over death and the restoration of the created order to its “original,” that is, its intended beauty and harmony (the meaning of “cosmos”). There as the heavenly Paraclete He makes perpetual intercession on our behalf before the Father (1 Jn 2:1-2). From there He reaches out, in communion with all the saints and the heavenly host, to bless, guide, and preserve us in this present age, in the time and space of our daily life. And thereby, through His presence in our own ceaseless eucharistic celebration, He fulfills His promise to remain with us until the end of the age.
However much we may have lost touch with the significance of the feast of the Ascension, it remains a central and indispensable celebration in the life of the Church. By ascending into the heavenly sanctuary, Christ fulfills the movement toward exaltation begun with His Resurrection, and prepares the Church for a continual pentecostal effusion of the Holy Spirit.
By that Ascension, as the kontakion declares, “Christ unites earth to heaven.” He completes the work of incarnation by uniting our fallen nature to His perfect divine nature. Thereby, exalting us with Himself, He fulfills our deepest hope and our deepest longing, by granting us a share in His eternal glory.
~John Breck, God with Us: Critical Issues in Christian Life and Faith
