© Copyright 2018 Saint Kosmas Orthodox Christian Education Association. All rights reserved. No part of this text may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or posted on another website without permission of the copyright owner. Permission is granted to share this lesson only by sharing the link to this webpage.
THE ASCENSION OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST
Dear Children,
Let’s begin our lesson.
We see here below many small icons that tell us about the life of Christ.
These icons show us twelve feasts of the Church. Let’s review them.
The first icon is of the Annunciation, which we celebrate March 25, when the Archangel Gabriel brings the news to the Theotokos that she will give birth to the Son of God. Next we have the icon of the Nativity of Christ.
Here is the icon of the feast of the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple which we celebrate on February 2, when He is 40 days old. Next is the baptism of Christ in the River Jordan on January 6.
Here is an icon of the feast of the Transfiguration which took place on Mount Tabor 40 days before Christ’s crucifixion. Christ reveals His Divinity to three of His disciples, as much as they are able to bear. Then one week before His passion, Christ resurrects Lazarus from the dead.
The next day He rides into Jerusalem, which we celebrate on Palm Sunday. Then is an icon of Christ’s crucifixion.
Here is an icon of Christ’s descent into Hades, where He raises Adam and Eve. Forty days after His Resurrection, we celebrate the feast of the Ascension. In this icon we see Christ ascending into heaven.
Ten days after the Ascension, we celebrate the feast of Pentecost with the descent of the Holy Spirit. The last feast is the falling asleep of the Theotokos. We honor her because she gave her flesh so that God could become incarnate. These are called the twelve feasts.
The Evangelist Luke mentions the Ascension in a few words in his Gospel. He describes it more in the Acts of the Apostles. Let us read together from Acts 1:4-12:
“And being assembled together with them, He ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, He said, ye heard of Me; for John indeed baptised with water, but ye shall be baptised in the Holy Spirit not many days after these. Indeed therefore, after they came together, they kept on questioning, saying, “Lord, dost Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” And He said to them, “It is not yours to know the times or seasons which the Father Himself put in His own authority. But ye shall receive power, after the Holy Spirit is come upon you; and ye shall be witnesses to Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the ends of the earth.” And having said these things, while they looked, He was taken up; and from before their eyes, a cloud took Him up from under.
And while they were gazing intently into the heaven as He went, then behold, two men stood by them in white raiment, who also said, “Men, Galileans, why do ye stand looking into the heaven? This Jesus, the One Who was taken up from you into the heaven, so shall He come in the manner ye beheld Him going into the heaven.” Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount which is called the Mount of Olives, which is near Jerusalem, being a sabbath’s day journey.”
In this passage we read how the apostles saw angels. Angels are always in icons of the Ascension.
Some angels are shown holding the glory of Christ with their hands…
…and other angels are speaking to the apostles.
With the apostles, we see St. Paul. Was Saint Paul at the Ascension? No, he had not yet become a Christian, but in the Tradition of our Church, he is always included with the disciples in the icon of the Ascension.
From another Evangelist we also know that Panagia was present.
Here we see Panagia and St. Paul with the angels in the icon of the Ascension.
The Ascension took place outside the city on the Mount of Olives, so we see trees in the icon.
Christ ascends in His glory; angels accompany Him.
Two angels say to the disciples, "As you see Him now going up, in the same way He will come again."
When will Christ come again? He will come again at the end of the world. This is the faith of our Church, and the words of the angels are in the Apostle’s Creed.
Do you remember what we say in the Creed? The first six articles of the Creed are about Christ. We confess, “and He ascended into the heavens, and sits at the right hand of the Father, and He shall come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end.”
Of this confession of faith, what has not yet happened? The only thing we are waiting for is the second coming of Christ. Everything else has been done.
Did Christ say He will come again? Yes, He said it in the Gospel: “When the Son of Man shall come in His glory and sit on His throne of glory…” Christ said that He will come again.
When Christ ascended, the angel said that He will come back in the same way. What does it mean that He will come in the same way? He will come as a man, as God-man, because He left as the God-man. As the God-man, He sits at the right hand of the Father.
Do you know which saint first saw Christ seated at the right hand of the Father? Who was this first witness? Who was the first martyr? It was Saint Stephen who we celebrate on December 27.
In the Acts of the Apostles we read how when Saint Stephen was being martyred, he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right of God. As they were stoning him, he called upon the Lord and asked God to forgive them.
Do you see? Our first great martyr, St.Stephen, before he gave up his soul, saw the heavens opened and Jesus at the right hand of God the Father. This is why we confess in the Creed “and He sits at the right hand of the Father.”
In this icon we recognize some of the apostles. Here is St. Peter, St. Andrew, and the youngest disciple, St. John the Theologian.
They are looking with such wonder and amazement seeing Christ go up in a cloud.
In the same way, we should always keep our gaze fixed upwards, towards Christ, and not be distracted by the things of this world.
In the Divine Liturgy, the priest reminds us of this when he says during the anaphora, “Let us lift up our hearts to the Lord.”
Here is the Apostle Paul.
Here is an angel. What did the angel say? “Why are you looking up? The way you see Him going up, the same way He will come again.”
This is Christ in His glory. What is this glory? The Uncreated Light.
The Theotokos, the apostles, and the angels are all watching.
Do you recognize Saint Peter here? He is saying, "Oh my, what is this that I see?" He is seeing the fulfillment of all of the prophecies. The prophets saw the Ascension in the same way they saw the Birth, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection of Christ.
Here is a Byzantine Church on Meteora in Greece. There are icons over all the walls. Byzantine churches were covered in icons like this. Here is the iconostasis. Here are the royal doors, and way up high, next to the dome is an icon of the Ascension. This is the proper place for the icon of the Ascension.
Here again, we see the Ascension icon near the dome.
Here below is an icon of the Transfiguration which shows Christ in His glory.
What does the glory around Christ show? It shows that Christ was not just man, but that He also was God. Christ is God and man. This is the faith of our Church. The devil has never wanted this saving faith confessed that Jesus is both God and man. This is why we have many heresies in the history of the Church around the person of Christ.
In the Creed, we have one article for the Father, but for the God-man, Jesus, there are six articles. The Church Fathers gave us these six articles to clearly define the saving confession of the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and to oppose the false teachings of heretics.
When the Church was being persecuted, the persecutors did not want the martyrs to confess that Jesus was God. This is why they were killed. They wanted them to say that Jesus Christ was a good man, a righteous man, a great prophet, but NOT that he was God.
This is why our church, the Orthodox church, with all means available—in catechism, in the hymnography, in icons—constantly teaches and preaches that Jesus is perfect God and perfect man.
When the Antichrist comes, he will claim that Jesus was not God, and that he, himself, is God. But we confess every day in the Creed that Christ is fully God and fully man.
Here again we see the glory of God. Look here are the marks on His feet, the marks of His Passion. When Christ ascended into heaven, He still had the marks from His crucifixion on His hands and feet.
The Gospel tell us that Christ’s resurrected body had the marks of the Passion on it. Which Gospel tells us this? When did Christ appear and show the marks to His apostles? On Thomas Sunday! What did He say to Thomas?
When Thomas heard from the disciples that they had seen the Lord, Thomas said he would not believe unless he saw the marks and felt them. After eight days, Christ appeared again to the disciples and allowed Thomas to see and touch the marks.
In the book of Revelation, St. John the Evangelist tells us that when Christ comes again, he will have the marks of His Passion on his body. Those people who crucified Him will also see the marks and realize that He, who they crucified, is God.
Here is the Platytera icon of the Mother of God. It is always above the holy altar. This icon unites heaven and earth because she is the “heavenly ladder where by God has descended.” Platytera means “spacious” or “wider than”. She is more spacious than the heavens because she contained in her body, God who cannot be contained.
Just below the Platytera, we see the Communion of the Apostles. Christ is giving them His Body and Blood.
Below that, we see the saints who wrote the divine liturgies, St. Basil the Great and St. John Chrysostom. We also see St. Kyrillos who defended the ever-virginity of the Mother of God and that she should be called the Theotokos.
The open hands of Panagia in the Platytera icon show that she is praying. This position of hers is taken from the icon of the Ascension.
Here we see the glory of Christ. Christ went up in a cloud, depicted in a sitting position on a bow.
The angels are amazed because for the first time they see a person going up to heaven, and fully recognize Him as God.
Here in this icon of the Second Coming of Christ, we see again Christ in His glory. At the Ascension the angels said to the apostles, “As you see Him go up, so will you see Him come again.” The whole world will see Christ come again in His Glory to judge the world.
THE END AND GLORY TO GOD FOR ALL THINGS!
© Copyright 2018 Saint Kosmas Orthodox Christian Education Association. All rights reserved. No part of this text may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or posted on another website without permission of the copyright owner. Permission is granted to share this lesson only by sharing the link to this webpage.
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