All great church feasts, in addition to their festal nature, also have enormous doctrinal significance. They are the cornerstones of our faith, upon which the majestic and holy temple of Christian theology and Christian worldview is founded. One such cornerstone is the event of today's feast—the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ into heaven.
Theologians say that the Incarnation of God revealed to humanity the mystery not only of God but also of man. If God did not disdain human nature, if He deemed it possible for Himself to clothe Himself in it, to appropriate it—not only the soul but also the body—then human nature, including its material component, possesses great value and dignity. The human body proved capable of containing within itself the One whom, according to Scripture, heaven and earth cannot contain—the Lord of Glory Himself. How, then, can one not recognize the great dignity of the human body? Christianity certainly recognizes this great dignity, and from this recognition flows a Christian attitude toward the human body, an attitude unknown to the ancient, pre-Christian world.
Before Christ, there were two main views on the human body, both deeply flawed. Some—those who acknowledged the value of the body—said: yes, the body is valuable, but they viewed it solely as a source of pleasure. That is, the human body is valuable because it provides the opportunity to enjoy a wide range of pleasures. This view, of course, is base and unworthy of man, and the best people of the ancient world understood this well. In contrast, they developed an entirely different approach to the human body—a completely opposite one. They began to reject the body altogether, arguing that the body is a source of impurity and vice, a prison for the soul from which a wise person must strive to free itself. This approach, although higher and more intelligent, was ultimately just as erroneous as the first. The debate between these two opinions continued for centuries, endlessly, like a hamster running on a wheel. The question was resolved only when God Himself, incarnate and becoming man, came into our world. If the human body became the body of God, then, of course, this meant a revolution in the way humans approached their bodies. What, then, is the new Christian approach?
Christianity has a thoroughly positive attitude toward the human body, and one might even say that only Christians truly love the body. But, unlike the first pagan position, they love the body not because it is a source of pleasure, but because it is called to be the temple of the Living God. The body was created not for animal pleasures, but for God Himself to dwell and reside within it. Do you not know, says the Apostle Paul, that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who dwells in you? And elsewhere he says: you are the temple of God, because the Spirit of God dwells in you. Christians know that not only the souls but also the bodies of the righteous will enter into blessed eternity, and they will also share in the glory of the Heavenly Kingdom. "I look for the resurrection of the dead," we sing every day at the Liturgy.
However, while treating the body with complete positivity, Christianity also knows very well that, under the conditions of the profound damage to man caused by Adam's fall, the body can be, and almost always is, an inexhaustible source of sin, passions, and all manner of impurity. And knowing this, Christianity knows how to wisely separate the sin and impurity that dwell in a damaged body from the body itself. Preaching asceticism and even "mortification of the flesh," Christianity wars not against the body as such, but against the sin that dwells in the body. The Holy Fathers taught us not to be body-killers, but sin-killers, says St. Callistus in the Philokalia. Just as a physician, making incisions and cauterizing, seeks to rid the patient not of the body, but of the body's affliction, so the Christian approach, unlike the second of the aforementioned opinions, aims not to destroy the body, not to wage war against the body, but to heal it from passions and liberate it from slavery to sin. For only by being freed from sin can it become what it was created for, that is, a temple of God, a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit.
Christ came to earth precisely to make this possible, to restore human nature to the original dignity it possessed before the fall of Adam. And He truly did restore it through His dispensation: the Incarnation, the sacrifice of the Cross, the Resurrection, and the Ascension. Through the Incarnation, He united the body with His Divinity; through the sacrifice of the Cross and the Resurrection, He healed it from sin and death; and through the Ascension, He raised it to heaven and glorified it with eternal glory.
Thus, the Ascension is a crucial link in the work of salvation and glorification of fallen human nature. By His bodily Ascension, Christ glorified man and seated him at the right hand of God the Father. The expression "to sit at the right hand" signifies the complete equality of the Son with the Father. Christ, the Son of God, took on our flesh and seated it at the right hand of God in heaven. In other words, He took one of us into His own Person, raised him to heaven, and granted him power and glory equal to His own.
Let's imagine that some great and glorious king were to come to an island inhabited by hopelessly ill lepers (in ancient times, lepers were often transported to islands for isolation), and, taking one of these unfortunates, he brought him to his glittering capital, to his splendid palace, cured him of his leprosy, seated him on the throne next to himself, and granted him equal power and glory. If all this happened, what significance would it have for the lepers remaining on the island? Of course, it would have great significance, and these unfortunates would be very, very happy, because they knew that their relative, their friend, and fellow sufferer, having been cured of his illness and granted such great power, would certainly not forget them, but would do everything to free them from the misfortune, from the hopeless state in which they found themselves.
In the above comparison, the island of lepers is our land, leprosy is the sin and death with which we are infected, the inhabitants of the island are all the people of our world, and the great King—Christ, the Son of God—united our mortal nature with Himself, healed it from the leprosy of death by His Resurrection, and by His Ascension raised it to heaven, to the eternal abodes above, and bestowed upon it a glory greater than that of the Angels, Cherubim, and Seraphim. If He entered there, then, of course, He will not forget us, who have now become His kin in human nature, but will bring us to Himself—if only we ourselves desire it and strive to come to Him.
The Gospel says that after Christ's Ascension, the apostles returned to Jerusalem "with great joy." What was it about their joy? After all, they were separated from their beloved Teacher and Lord? They rejoiced because they understood the nature of Christ's Kingdom, to which they had been called. They understood that it was entirely different from human kingdoms, that it was not of this world and incomparable to anything on earth. Christ had spoken to them many times about His Kingdom, but they imagined it, though great and glorious, still an ordinary earthly kingdom. After Christ's Ascension, they understood that this Kingdom was of an entirely different nature and infinitely surpassed everything imaginable, as it is written: "Ear has not heard, nor eye seen, neither has it entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love Him..."
Saint Silouan the Athonite says that our Lord has ascended to heaven and awaits us all, so that we too may be there with Him, near Him. The Gospel contains the words of Christ's prayer to His heavenly Father: "Father! I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory." Let us hasten, brothers and sisters, to respond to the Lord's ineffable and incomprehensible love for us. Let us strive for His sake in our Christian lives, and let us strive to fulfill His holy commandments. Let us strive for this, so that in due time we too may enter those heavenly abodes of light where the Lord entered before us, to prepare a place for us, according to the Gospel. Amen.