In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
We are all very anxious to pin things down. The disciples were anxious to pin things down. In the middle of everything that had happened, they continued to ask the Lord, as it were : “Is it now, Lord ? Is now the time ? Are You going to establish the Kingdom of Israel now ?” The fact is that they were not yet able to understand that the Kingdom of God is a mystery beyond seeing and beyond the limitations of earthly boundaries.
Palestine (as it was known) was a province of the Roman Empire. It was not an area that could contain the Kingdom of God. Even the farthest extents of the kingdom of David and Solomon were not big enough to hold the Kingdom of God. The Russian Empire was not big enough to hold the Kingdom of God and neither was the British Empire, which was even bigger, nor the American Empire, which is big enough, too. Canada, the second biggest country in the world, is not big enough to hold it and in fact, the whole world is not big enough to hold the Kingdom. We cannot pin it down like that. The Lord ascended into Heaven in order to send the Holy Spirit to us. If He had remained with us as His disciples who loved Him wished that He would, He would have had to limit Himself in His ability to be with us. However, He chose not to limit Himself permanently in His ability to be with us. The Lord ascended in order to send the Holy Spirit to us so that He would be with us always just as He promised when He departed from His disciples.
The Holy Spirit did come and spread the Kingdom of Heaven to whatever hearts are prepared to receive Him. All around the world today, as we stand in the Divine Liturgy celebrating this Event, the Kingdom of God is present. All around the world, believers have assembled in places like this, at all different times, to worship the Lord and to be in the Kingdom. Here we stand today, gathered in the Kingdom. However, we ourselves seem to be anxious to put limits on that Kingdom, too. We want to put limits of language, culture, and some other sorts of limits on the Divine Liturgy. In the presence of the Kingdom, this cannot be. How can we put a limit on the proclamation of the Kingdom ? How can we confine it ? The Kingdom has to be proclaimed. Souls have to be saved. People have to be allowed to enter the Kingdom. They have to be welcomed with open and loving arms and raised up in the Kingdom with us.
These souls that are hungry for God’s love have to find it in us Orthodox Christians because they will likely not find it anywhere else except by divine intervention. They must find His love in us and amongst us. Thus, our responsibility is to live in the Kingdom, to live as the sons and daughters of the King to our greatest ability. By reaching out our hands in love together with our hearts, we bring life to the world. That is what our responsibility is. When He parted from us, as He ascended into Heaven, the Lord said, as it were : “Preach the Gospel, the good news of reunion with God, the good news of the love of God for His creatures, and of love and life amongst all human beings in this Kingdom”. That is the responsibility that comes to us from today’s readings : the responsibility to take our Christian lives seriously.
In a manner of speaking, the Ascension into Heaven expresses what is to come for us. We must prepare by exercising our membership in the Kingdom here and now. We must proclaim the truth of the Lord. We must live His love. We must build up and unite the members of the Body of Christ and draw all together to the Lord. He stands amongst us, drawing us to Himself, offering Himself to us, saying still : “‘I am with you always, even to the end of the age’” (Matthew 28:20). Let us let Him live in us. Let us let His love and the presence of the Kingdom radiate from our lives together. May this Kingdom bring healing, life, love and victory to many souls hungering and thirsting for Him. May our lives transparently reveal the life-giving love of the all-holy Trinity : Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.