Conference yukon::christian_v7

147.0. "Ascension Day" by COVERT::COVERT (John R. Covert) Thu May 20 1993 00:00

From a sermon of Leo the Great, Bishop of Rome [461 A.D.]

At Easter, it was the Lord's resurrection which was the cause of our joy;
our present rejoicing is on account of his ascension into heaven.  With
all due solemnity we are commemorating that day on which our poor human
nature was carried up, in Christ, above all the hosts of heaven, above
the ranks of angels, beyond the highest heavenly powers to the very throne
of God the Father.  It is upon this ordered structure of divine acts that we
have been firmly established, so that the grace of God may show itself still
more marvelous when, in spite of the withdrawal from our sight of everything
that is rightly felt to command our reverence, faith does not fail, hope is
not shaken, charity does not grow cold.

For such is the power of great minds, such the light of truly believing
souls, that they put unhesitating faith in what is not seen with the bodily
eye; they fix their desires on what is beyond sight.  Such fidelity could
never be born in our hearts, nor could anyone be justified by faith, if our
salvation lay only in what was visible.

And so our Redeemer's visible presence has passed into the sacraments.  Our
faith is nobler and stronger because sight has been replaced by a doctrine
whose authority is accepted by believing hearts, enlightened from on high.
This faith was increased by the Lord's ascension and strengthened by the
gift of the Spirit; it would remain unshaken by fetters and imprisonment,
exile and hunger, fire and ravening beasts, and the most refined tortures
ever devised by brutal persecutors.  Throughout the world women no less
than men, girls as well as boys, have given their life's blood in the
struggle for this faith.  It is a faith that has driven out devils, healed
the sick, and raised the dead.

Even the blessed apostles, though they had been strengthened by so many
miracles and instructed by so much teaching, took fright at the cruel
suffering of the Lord's passion and could not accept his resurrection
without hesitation.  Yet they made such progress through his ascension
that they now found joy in what had terrified them before.  They were
able to fix their minds on Christ's divinity as he sat at the right hand
of the Father, since what was presented to their bodily eyes no longer
hindered them from turning all their attention to the realization that he
had not left his Father when he came down to earth, nor had he abandoned
his disciples when he ascended into heaven.

The truth is that the Son of Man was revealed as Son of God in a more
perfect and transcendent way once he had entered into the Father's
glory; he now began to be indescribably more present in divinity to
those from whom he was further removed in humanity.  A more mature
faith enabled their minds to stretch upward to the Son in his equality
with the Father; it no longer needed contact with Christ's tangible
body, in which as a human being he is inferior to the Father.  For
while his glorified body retained the same nature, the faith of those
who believed in him was now summoned to the heights where, as the
Father's equal, the only-begotten Son is reached not by physical
handling but by spirtual discernment.

See the Conqueror mounts in triumph     He who on the cross did suffer
See the King in royal state,            He who from the grave arose,
Riding on the clouds his chariot,       He has vanquished sin and Satan;
To his heavenly palace gate!            He by death has spoiled his foes.
Hark the choirs of angel voices         While he lifts his hands in blessing,
Joyful alleluias sing,                  He is parted from his friends;
And the portals high are lifted         While their eager eyes behold him,
To receive their heavenly King.         He upon the clouds ascends.

                    Thou hast raised our human nature
                    On the clouds to God's right hand:
                    There we sit in heavenly places,
                    There with thee in glory stand.
                    Jesus reigns, adored by angels;
                    Man with God is on the throne;
                    Mighty Lord, in thine ascension,
                    We by faith behold our own.

                                      
        Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?
        Alleluia:
        In like manner as ye have seen him going up into heaven, so shall
                he come again.
        Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.