In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit, I wish each of you a joyous
and wonderful feast day. Nice to see you. When
I was young, and my father was a chaplain in
the Air Force, we had liturgy basically once
a week. have the chapel available for vespers
on Saturday and if we had a feast day we would
go if there was one in the area to a local parish
to celebrate with them. Usually it was a Greek
parish and everything was in Greek. But in our
base chapel it was very plain you know churchly
looking. Well, not churchly. The only reason
you could tell it was a church is because it
had pews, really. It was a very plain building.
I think many of you probably have been in such
places before you became Orthodox. We had our
vestments and we'd set up the icons for liturgy.
And, you know, we did a regular divine liturgy.
But it would have never occurred to me. To be
able to explain to anyone why we had vestments,
why we had icons, I had an assumption that the
resurrection was important and we had Pascha,
of course, we had Holy Week, but I would have
never thought that it was about the body, the
actual body being raised from the dead. I would
have assumed that heaven, was the spiritual reality
which we would all go to, and that the Ascension,
therefore, had no impact in my life. It made
no sense if I had thought about it, which I did
not. There was many assumptions, and I think
most, many, many of our non -Orthodox brothers
and sisters have this assumption about the spiritual
life, and then we're here on earth. But it's...
really got nothing to do with heaven. But here
in the church, we realize when we read this,
Jesus stood in the midst of them, in the midst
of the apostles. He stood not only physically
in their midst, but in their hearts and their
minds, their souls. And this is why in the church
we say, the clergy say, Christ is in our midst
because it's a real thing. It's so real that
the Lord said, look at my wounds. And he said,
do you have anything to eat? Not that he needed
food because the divinity and humanity joined
in this glorified post -resurrectional body doesn't
need food to be sustained. But he wanted to show
them, yes, it is about the sanctification of
everything. So we wear vestments because Christ
stands in our midst. And he is the one clothed
in majesty. The Lord is clothed in glory. He
sits at the right hand of the Father in the body
that he had after the resurrection. Our human
nature is at the right hand. of the Father. Let
me read to you just a few pages, a few paragraphs,
excuse me, from Father Alexander Schmemann's
sermon to Radio Free America years and years
ago. The church is not celebrating Christ's departure.
It says that the apostles returned to Jerusalem
with great joy. Christ said, I am with you always,
even unto the end of the age. The entire joy
of Christian faith is in the awareness of his
presence. That's what all this means. It's a
sign of that. Just as he promised, where two
or three are gathered in my name, there I am
in the midst of them. We celebrate not Christ's
departure, but his ascension into heaven. St.
John Chrysostom says, what need? do I have for
heaven when I myself will become heaven? Father
Alexander says, let the answer come from our
ancestors who called the church heaven on earth.
The essential point of this, heaven is the name
of our authentic vocation as human beings. That
the world and the kingdom of God are united.
Heaven is the final truth about earth. No heaven
is not somewhere in outer space behind planets
or in some unknown galaxy. Heaven is what Christ
gives back to us, what we lost through our sin
and pride, through our earthly, exclusively earthly,
and now sciences and ideologies, and now it is
opened, offered. returned to us by Christ. Heaven
is the kingdom of eternal life, the kingdom of
truth, goodness, and beauty. Heaven is the total
spiritual transformation of earthly and human
life. Heaven is the kingdom of God, victory over
death, the victory and the triumph of love and
care. Heaven is the fulfillment of that ultimate
desire about which it is said, eye has not seen
nor ear heard. nor has it entered into the heart
of man what God has prepared for those who love
him. All of this is revealed to us. All of this
is given to us by Christ. And therefore, heaven
on this day, ascension, permeates our life here
and now. The earth itself becomes a reflection,
a mirror image of heavenly beauty. Who descended
from heaven to earth to return heaven to us?
God. Who ascended from earth to heaven? The man
Jesus. St. Athanasius the Great said these famous
words. God became man so that man could become
God by grace. God came down to earth that we
might ascend to heaven. This is what the ascension
celebrates. This is the source of its brightness
and unspeakable joy. When St. John the theologian
Had the vision of heaven. The book of Revelation.
He spoke about the throne. And one like the son
of man taking the words from the prophet Daniel.
Sitting on the throne next to the father. And
praise and glory being offered to him. The lamb
slain before the foundation of the world. These
words were written. As an encouragement to those
who were suffering persecution. To those who
were suffering being outcast from their communities.
Violence and loneliness. They were an encouragement.
When we hear the gospel, the victory, we can't
think that Christ came to save my problems. He
came to save us and all of us and this world.
And St. John is telling them, there is one Lord.
It's not Caesar. It's not a politician. It's
not, oh, I don't know, some pandemic. It's not
the war. It's Christ in heaven. He says, the
Father has put all things into my power in heaven
and on earth. Go ye therefore without fear and
teach all of this to all people. baptizing them
in the name of the Father and the Son and the
Holy Spirit. And then he was lifted up into the
cloud of glory. And so we still say Christ is
in our midst because the Holy Spirit has been
given to us. And so we exalt in the glory of
this, not declaration, but a revelation of what
heaven is and why we are standing in its midst,
even now today, why we can say, for the peace
from above and for the salvation of our souls
let us pray to the lord amen