Feast of the Ascension of Christ

Bishop Seraphim : Homily
In the Ascension, our loving Lord sends more Love
Feast of the Ascension of Christ
17 May, 2007
Acts 1:1-12 ; Luke 24:36-53


In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Not a few people have said to me in the course of time that this seems to be a rather sad feast-day because today the Lord ascends to Heaven, and is taken away from us, as it were. We stop singing “Christ is risen”, and everything changes. On the other hand, our Saviour Himself says that all this has to be because something more important has yet to come for us. The gift of the Holy Spirit has to come. Our Saviour says that unless He would ascend into Heaven, the gift of the Holy Spirit would not come. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary that He ascend into Heaven, as He is doing today.

We learn today that just before the Ascension into Heaven, after forty days of His being with them, telling them Who He is, and what He is doing, reminding them about everything, the apostles are still saying to our Lord : “‘Will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’” They, like all sorts of us, were slow to understand. We will see in the readings that after the Ascension, the Apostle Peter and the other apostles obeyed and prayed. They asked the Lord to choose, and Judas was replaced by the Apostle Matthias. However, they remained in fear, locked behind closed doors. The Apostle Peter was one of those who were still afraid. He, like we, was taking a long time to catch on to things. We will recall that he was an older man when he encountered Christ. We also know that after the age of 25, people characteristically are already very set in their ways.

Nevertheless, the love of the Lord is so great ; the love of the Lord is so all-encompassing ; the love of the Lord is so deep that it is beyond us. We cannot even begin truly to grasp the immensity of the Lord’s love. I have said many times (and other people have said it too) that if I were God, this earth would have been wiped out and fried a long time ago. We humans do not have anything like the love and the patience that He has. Why has the world not come to an end long ago with all the evil that is rampant upon the earth ? It is because the Lord in His mercy, the Lord who is the Lover of us all, the Lord who created us all, the Lord who continues to love us into existence and through our existence, this same Lord is patient in His love. He is still waiting for us all so that we might have the maximum opportunity to turn to the light, to turn away from darkness before such a consummation of all things will occur.

Many people are talking about the end of the world on television, radio, and so forth. These people do not have the patience of the Lord. They speculate that because things are so horrible, things must be coming to an end now. However, our Lord has said over and over that “‘of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only’” (Matthew 24:36). It is our business, in the midst of all this difficulty, all these trials and tribulations, to be persevering in love. It is our business to be living out the love of Jesus Christ through the Grace of the Holy Spirit in the way that He showed us. Without the Grace of the Holy Spirit, who could survive ? That is why it was important that the Lord ascend into the Heavens today, so that He would then send the Holy Spirit upon us and enable us to live our lives in the midst all the difficulties.

If it were not for the outpouring of the Grace of the Holy Spirit upon the Church, how would all the martyrs from the time of the beginning of the Church have known how to be faithful as they were ? Let us consider the seventy-plus years of Soviet domination of the former imperial territory, the former Soviet Union. It is beyond imagination how the people lived and endured all the godlessness and all that slaughter throughout all those years. How could they have managed to live through all that, and survive and still be Christians (and that there still be a Church) if the Holy Spirit had not been poured out upon them, and if the Holy Spirit had not sustained them ? Often we think that it is so difficult for us one way or another here, now, in Canada. What we are living (no matter what our difficulties are) is just “a piece of cake” and “a walk in the park” compared to what people had to suffer in those territories for seventy years, and what other people elsewhere had to suffer, too, over the course of the past 2,000 years. It is true that the greatest, the gravest, has been in this last century. It was horrible. But still, no matter how hard the devil tried to put out the light, he never succeeded, and he never will.

As we see the Lord ascend into Heaven today while we are standing with the apostles and the Mother of God on the Mount of Olives, and He is taken from our sight, let us all rejoice in the coming of the Holy Spirit to strengthen us. He does already strengthen us because we are already living in the Grace of the Holy Spirit. Let us take strength from the Lord and keep confident in His promises that He is going to be with us all the time. He says : “‘I am with you always’” (Matthew 28:20), and indeed He is with us always. It is extremely important that we remember the promise of the Lord every day of our lives when the Tempter is trying to drag us away. The promises of the Lord are always constant, and always faithful (unlike us, who seem always to find ourselves breaking promises). The promises of the Lord are always faithful, and they are always fulfilled. The Grace of the Holy Spirit does come to us and enables us to live our lives with joy, with confidence, and with power.

Today, with the apostles, we are looking up and seeing our Saviour part from us. Let us follow the example of the apostles, and be in the Temple constantly praising the Lord, because this is what we were created to do. Above everything else, we were created to praise God. It is crucial for us to make certain that all our lives are characterised by this praising God, glorifying Him for everything. I want to remind those of you who are of Ukrainian origin, that your language (like Russian, Romanian, Georgian, Serbian and Greek) has very many daily reminders woven into it about glorifying God. For instance, there is the western Ukrainian custom of always saying : “Glory be to Jesus Christ” before we ever talk to each other. We always put Christ between ourselves before we begin the conversation. If someone says “thank-you” to us, then we say : “To the glory of God”. Everything is referred to Jesus Christ. Everything is offered to God. Everything is referred to Him. Those are just a couple of expressions.

There are many more similar expressions in the Ukrainian language in particular, and in Russian too. These languages have been baptised by the Grace of the Holy Spirit over the past thousand or more years. These languages, and the way of life, bring into everything the presence of Jesus Christ and the glorification of God. Let us get busy and make certain that we translate these customs into our Canadian English way. The Canadian English polite way in which we never say anything about anything (always being so silent) tends to help us to be forgetful. It is necessary that we avoid such temptations in Canada, and that we translate these important idioms into English and use them. In fact, not so long ago, English did have some such idioms. We also need to be reminded that everything has to refer to God. Everything that we are, and do, and all our relationships have to have Jesus Christ in the midst of them.

The Lord ascended in glory granting joy to His apostles. He gives joy to you and to me. Even though another Paschal season has come to an end, the joy of the Resurrection never does end. The living out of the Resurrection never does end. The fulfilment of the love of God never ends. Let us ask the same loving Lord to give us the Grace and the strength to persevere in His love, remembering to trust Him in everything, no matter what difficulties we face. As our Saviour says : “‘I am with you always, even to the end of the age’” (Matthew 28:20). To Him be glory, together with the unoriginate Father, and the all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages.