HOMILY ON ASCENSION – FATHER GAVRIL GALEV
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In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit
Today we celebrate the event of Christ’s ascension to heaven. [The Feast of the Ascension of the Lord – is the day on which the Lord ascended into heaven (Acts 1: 1-12; Mark 16: 12-19; Luke 24: 50-52).
After the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified on the Cross for us, for the redemption of our sins and deliverance from death, on the third day He rose from the dead. Doom (hell) could not hold captive the One who has power over life and death and Who is the creator of everything, the true God. Who, in order to show the truth of His resurrection and to show that He is the expected, promised and preached (prophesised) Messiah of the world, confirmed His resurrection through appearances (manifestation); first to the Most Holy Theotokos, then to the myrrh-bearing women, then to the apostles and all the others whom He chose to show Himself to.
Having been resurrected by the power of His Deity, on the fortieth day He ascended to heaven from where He came. He ascended with the same body that he received from the Most Holy Theotokos, Mary, now only deified and inspirited, in order to honour human nature with the greatest dignity and glory, to sit at the right hand of God the Father. In other words, the Son of God, by the goodwill of God the Father, was incarnate and became man, uniting the earthly with the heavenly, and through His body to raise our fallen nature, which was previously created to worship and participate in God’s nature, in the kingdom of God. And which, on the other hand, because of the transgression and deviation of our fore-parents Adam and Eve and the inclination toward sin and the passions of this world, they did not fulfil that call and humanity fell to defile itself in the mud of passions and sins, became trapped by them, by death and by the devil.
Our forefather Adam closed the door of the Kingdom of Heaven, and the cherubim with the weapon of fire was placed before door. But the love of God could not bear to watch His creation suffer. For God so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16) God, the Word, was incarnate and became man, and thus God again gave man the opportunity to deify himself and become a god by grace. Adam sinned, closed heaven and the way to life, and opened the way to death and hell. The Lord Jesus Christ, the new Adam, did the opposite. Because He did not sin, He defeated the devil, destroyed death and closed hell, and opened the gates of Paradise that will never be closed. And Its gates shall not be shut at all by day; for there shall be no night. And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations in to it; there shall by no means for anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie to enter, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. (Rev. 21: 25-27).
Therefore, after the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled the salvific dispensation of our salvation, on the fortieth day ascended to heaven, to open the way for the Holy Spirit, to come and make real the possibility of deification. The Lord Jesus Christ ascended to heaven but did not leave us alone. He promised us the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, and that is why our hearts were filled with joy. “Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. Most assuredly, I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; and you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy.” (John 16: 7,20).
At Pentecost (the event that follows) the Holy Spirit founded the Church and through the Holy Spirit we all become one Body of Christ. The Church has become our home and place where we will live and can participate in the Divine energies and truly partake of communion with God through the body and blood of Christ, which He has left us as real food and real drink. Then Jesus said to them; “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is real food, and My blood is real drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me.”(John 6: 53-57).
The Ascension of Christ is a very important event in the history of all mankind. If He had not ascended and sat at the right hand of the Father, neither would the Holy Spirit have descended on the Apostles, and through them on the Holy Fathers and on us to this day, in the Church, and we still would not have access to God and the kingdom of God. Nor would the Second Coming of Christ and the Last Judgment have been possible, but not yet in full. Therefore, after Christ – the Headman of our salvation performed the mystery of Dispensation – He brought the fallen human nature from the earth, from decay and death to the everlasting life of the heavens. By pre-sanctifying the human nature to the highest level, by His Ascension, the Lord made it possible for us to receive the Holy Spirit.
The Lord ascended to heaven to intercede for us before God the Father says St. John the Theologian: “My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous.” (I John 2: 1-2)
“It is Christ Jesus, Who died, and furthermore is also risen, Who is even at the right hand of God, Who also makes intersession for us!” (Rom. 8:34).
In this way God opened the way to the kingdom of heaven and the way to God and salvation. It is up to us now, with our willpower, to voluntarily accept the Gospel, God’s commandments, and all that God allows to happen in our life, in a virtuous sacramental life in the Church to be partakers of God’s nature, to be ascended to the kingdom of heaven, and to be that for which God created us. In the same way as Saint Apostle Paul, who, by the grace and providence of God, ascended in body to the third heaven, who, because of the excitement, did not know whether he was in a body or without a body, saw unspeakable things, felt what man could not feel, saw what the human eye cannot see and human reason cannot understand, that God has also prepared for us.
With Christ’s ascension to heaven, heaven remained forever open to man, as a new and eternal home, abode. “God – says St. Athanasius the Great – became man, for man to become God.” God came down to earth for us to ascend to heaven!
This is the defining point of the feast of the Ascension! – The ascension is also open to us, and we have been called, and in It, the purpose, the meaning, and the last joy of my life are revealed to me. “That is the truth of the world and of man, this is the thing for which from eternity God is calling us.” Christ opened, and bestowed the heaven to us, He Himself showed us the meaning of life as asceticism, struggle, advancement, climbing, rising, ascension, deification.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, let us not be deceived by the pleasures of life in this world, which are seemingly beautiful and sweet, but in reality are painful and bitter. Which are like a decorative balloon that will burst and all its size and beauty will disappear in an instant. Then we will realise that our life has passed pointlessly in vain, and in lies, and then we will wail and cry. But let us awake in time while it is still daylight, make an effort and toil for the kingdom of God because it is worth it. May God give us the strength to endure in this work, to the end.
Amen
Father Gavril Galev
Abbot of the monastery “St. Clement of Ohrid”,
Kinglake, Melbourne, Australia
03 / 06 / 2022
