The Ascension of Christ: Our Humanity Enthroned in Heaven
There are feasts in the Church year that overwhelm the soul with joy, and there are feasts that reveal mysteries so profound that the mind itself stands in silence before them. The glorious Feast of the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ is both.
Forty days after His Resurrection, our Lord Jesus Christ ascended bodily into Heaven before the eyes of His disciples. Yet the Ascension is not merely the “departure” of Christ from the earth. It is not an ending, but an exaltation. Human nature itself, once fallen through Adam, was carried by Christ into the heavenly sanctuary and seated at the right hand of the Father.
The mystery is staggering: a human body now sits in glory at the right hand of God.
Not a phantom body. Not a symbolic humanity. But the very humanity that the Son of God assumed from the Most Holy Theotokos — glorified, risen, incorruptible, and enthroned.
As the holy Apostle Paul writes:
“And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”
(Ephesians 2:6)
The Fathers of the Church continually emphasize that Christ did not discard His humanity after the Resurrection. He ascended with it. The Incarnation is eternal. The Son of God became man not temporarily, but forever. Thus, when Christ ascended, He carried our nature into the Kingdom of Heaven itself.
Saint Leo the Great beautifully teaches that the Ascension of Christ is also the elevation of the faithful:
“The ascension of Christ is our elevation; and where the glory of the Head has preceded, there the hope of the body is called.”
This is why the Feast of the Ascension is filled not with sorrow, but with triumphant joy. The disciples did not stand weeping in despair after Christ vanished into the clouds. The Gospel tells us:
“And they worshipped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy.”
(Luke 24:52)
Why joy?
Because Christ did not abandon mankind. Rather, He completed the reconciliation between God and man. The gulf opened by sin had been bridged. The gates of Paradise, shut by Adam, had been opened by the New Adam.
Before the coming of Christ, humanity was exiled from communion with God through corruption, death, and sin. Even the righteous of the Old Testament awaited redemption. But through His Cross, Resurrection, and Ascension, Christ restored mankind to its proper destiny — union with God.
The Ascension, therefore, reveals the true dignity of man.
Modern man searches endlessly for “human worth” in politics, psychology, ideology, or worldly achievement. Yet the Church reveals the true greatness of humanity: human nature has been united to God in Christ.
The Son of God became the Son of Man so that the sons of men might become sons of God by grace.
This is the heart of Orthodox theology. Salvation is not merely legal forgiveness. It is restoration, healing, glorification, and participation in divine life. Christ assumed everything human except sin, healed it through His earthly life, conquered death through His Resurrection, and raised it into heavenly glory through His Ascension.
In iconography, the Feast of the Ascension shows Christ surrounded by heavenly glory while the Apostles stand gazing upward with the Most Holy Theotokos in their midst. The icon is not merely historical; it is theological. Christ ascends as the God-Man, opening the way for humanity itself to enter Heaven.
The Church also teaches that Christ now eternally intercedes for us before the Father. The Apostle says:
“For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”
(1 Timothy 2:5)
Notice the Apostle’s words carefully: the man Christ Jesus. Even after the Resurrection and Ascension, He remains both fully God and fully man.
Thus our humanity already stands before the throne of God in the Person of Jesus Christ.
This should fill the Orthodox Christian with both awe and responsibility. If our nature has been raised so high in Christ, how can we continue living in spiritual filth, passions, vanity, hatred, impurity, and worldly delusion??? The Ascension calls us upward. It reminds us that man was not created merely for earthly existence, but for Heaven.
As Saint Paul exhorts:
“Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.”
(Colossians 3:2)
The Feast of the Ascension proclaims that Heaven is no longer closed to mankind. Christ has entered there as our Forerunner. Where the Head has gone, the Body is called to follow.
And this is the astonishing mystery celebrated by the Church: not only did God come down to man, but man, in Christ, has ascended to God.
Through the prayers of the ascended Lord Jesus Christ, may we also be found worthy to ascend from earthly passions to heavenly life, glorifying Him together with the Father and the Holy Spirit unto the ages of ages. Amen.
