"He Ascended into Heaven"

The Ascension, Rabula Gospels (6th c., Syriac)

“God has gone up with a shout,

the LORD with the sound of the ram's-horn.”

— Psalm 47:5

Christ our God “has gone up with a shout” (Ps. 47:5).  He went up with a shout when “the Father of glory”—his Father and our Father, his God and our God (Jn. 20:17)—raised him in the power of the Spirit and “seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion” (Eph. 1:17, 20–21).  Jesus the Messiah, the King of glory, lives and reigns over the nations.  Seated at the Father’s right hand, he is destroying “every ruler and every authority and every power,” subduing all his enemies until even death is destroyed (1 Cor. 15:24–26).  His reign is not like that of the nations, for he reigns as the Lamb who was slain.    He reigns over the powers, because “all things have been created through him and for him” and because “he disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public spectacle of them,” triumphing over them in his cross (Col. 1:16; 2:15).  His weakness is mightier than the nations, who display only an empty simulacrum of strength.  He is “mighty in battle” (Ps. 24:8), trampling down death by death.

Christ has gone up with a shout, that those who believe might know “the immeasurable greatness” of God’s power for us (Eph. 1:19).  He returned to the Father that he might pour out on his church the Gift, the promised Holy Spirit.  He fills his church, which is his body, with his Spirit, “the pledge of our inheritance towards redemption as God’s own people” (1:14).  He pours out his Spirit as the pledge that we are, with Christ, children of God and joint heirs of his kingdom (Rom. 8:16–17).  The Spirit bears witness that Christ, who “ascended in the flesh to the bodiless Father,” has lifted up all our humanity and brought it to his Father.*  Christ sends the Spirit “that we, his members, might be confident of following where he, our Head and Founder, has gone before.”†

Christ has gone up with a shout, bearing our humanity in his body into the life of the Triune Lord, and giving the Spirit that his members might bear his life in their bodies.  Through the gift of the Spirit they share in his life.  He gives them to become a people capable of witnessing to his peaceful reign in the midst of the idolatrous and death-bound kingdoms of the world; they do not fear because he has won the victory.

* John of Damascus, Troparia, Canon for the Assumption.

† Missale Romanum, Preface of the Ascension I.

The Ascension

Today is the feast of the Ascension.  What do Christians mean when we confess our faith that the crucified and risen Jesus has "ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father"?

Over the last year or so I have wondered a lot about this question, which seems to fall under what Fergus Kerr calls "philosophy of theology."  That is, Christian confession of the Ascension raises a number of philosophical questions for theologians to face squarely.  The Ascension also presses questions of what we mean by "heaven" and in speaking of whether and how Christ is present in the Eucharist.

One common objection to the doctrine of the Ascension in the modern era is that it seems to hinge upon a cosmology that modern science has shown to be false.  But the logic of the doctrine of the Ascension does not require a view of the universe in which heaven is (literally) above the earth.  I love the Orthodox icons of the Ascension precisely because the iconography suggests that the ascension entails Jesus entering God's dimension, as it were.  The deep blue shape behind the ascending Jesus suggests a parting of the veil of the cosmos, affording a glimpse into the presence of the Almighty, thronging with mysterious winged creatures.  Another way to think of the Ascension might be in terms of time rather than space: Jesus has entered God's future, and we await our Lord's return to bring to fulfillment that future which began dawning during his earthly ministry.

On the Feast of the Ascension, Christians celebrate the risen Jesus, in the fullness of his humanity, returning to the bosom of the Father "to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing" (Rev. 5:12) and to send the Holy Spirit.  This Feast is about the victory of the Lamb who was slain: Vicit agnus noster, eum sequamur.