The Ascension: Our Destiny in Christ

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

The Ascension of Christ, 15th c., Novgorod

You were born, as was your will, O our God.
You revealed Yourself, in Your good pleasure.
You suffered in the flesh, and rose from the dead,
trampling down death by death!
Fulfilling all things, you ascended in glory ...
(Vespers of Ascension)

 

Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven,
and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary,
and became man.
And He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate,
and suffered, and was buried.
And the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures,
and ascended into Heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father.
(Nicene Creed)

The two texts above - one from the Feast of the Ascension and the other a portion of the Nicene Creed - are wonderful expressions of the great mystery of the "descent" and "ascent" of the Son of God. The eternal Son of God becomes the Son of Man, descending into our world to live among us and to teach us about, and prepare us for, the Kingdom of God. This is what we call the Incarnation.

This movement of descent is only completed when Christ is crucified and enters the very realm of death on our behalf. There is "nowhere" further to descend (in)to. Thus, there are no limits to the love of God for His creatures, for the descent of Christ into death itself is "for our salvation." The Son of God will search for Adam and Eve in the very realm of Sheol/Hades. He will rescue them and liberate them as representative of all humankind, languishing in "the valley of death." Since death cannot hold the sinless - and therefore deathless - Son of God, He begins His ascent to the heavenly realm with His resurrection from the dead. And He fulfills this paschal mystery with His glorious ascension.

As St. Paul writes: "He who descended is he who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things." (EPH. 4:10) The One who ascended, however, is now both God and man, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the incarnate, crucified, risen, and glorified Jesus Christ who is now seated at "the right hand of the Father," far above the heavens. It is the glorified flesh of the Incarnate Word of God which has entered into the very bosom of the Trinity in the Person of Christ. As St. Leo the Great, the pope of Rome (+461) taught:

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 all the ranks of angels, beyond the highest Heavenly powers to the very throne of God the Father.

This is simultaneously our ascension and our glorification, since we are united to Christ through holy Baptism as members of His Body. Therefore, St. Paul can further write: "For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God." (COL. 3:3) Out of our physical sight, we now "see" the glorified Christ through the eyes of faith. St. Leo further explains how important this spiritual insight is:

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 eyes; 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 is visible.

The Feast of the Ascension is not a decline from the glory of Pascha. It is, rather, the fulfillment of Pascha, and a movement upward toward the Kingdom of Heaven. It is the joyful revelation of our destiny in Christ. To return to the opening theme of the marvelous acts of God moving from the Incarnation to the Ascension, I would like to turn to St. Leo one more time for his understanding of that entire movement:

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 men's sight of everything that is rightly felt to command their reverence, faith does not fail, hope is not shaken, charity does not grow cold.

The Feast of the Ascension has a full octave, which means that we commemorate this great event until June 5 this year. According to St. Luke, once the disciples beheld Christ ascend into heaven, "they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple blessing God." (LK. 24:52) The "temple" is our common place of worship. Hopefully, we too, will soon be able to return to the temple blessing God. Yet, before that happens each one of us needs to bless God wherever we may find ourselves, because for each of us, our bodies are the "temple of the Holy Spirit" (I COR. 6:19).

 

 

 

The Leavetaking of Pascha and the Ascension of Christ

Dear Parish Faithful,

Christ is Risen!

Indeed He is Risen!

 

 

 

The Leave-taking of Pascha is Approaching - The sacred forty days during which the Church expresses the paschal joy of Christ's Resurrection is just about over, as the Leave-taking will occur this coming Wednesday. 

 

For forty days we proclaimed that "Christ is Risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!"  Of course, the Church always proclaims the Resurrection of Christ as that astounding event - an event that even transcends the very notion of the historical - is the very basis for the existence of the Church. Yet, during the paschal season the intensity and depth and breadth of that proclamation stands out within our liturgical life. 

 

I have included the link below as a fine example of how the paschal troparion is sung in a seemingly endless variation of musical styles. I believe the link below takes us into the world of the Georgian Orthodox Church (please correct me if I am mistaken). I further believe that the presentation is dependent upon the current pandemic, as the "choir" is a medley of isolated voices coming together with a wonderful sense of harmony and coordination via today's technology. A fine blend of the traditional and the contemporary. I believe you will enjoy it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYwnhXCZ_lY&feature=youtu.be  

Although we bid farewell to Pascha, we now anticipate the two great feasts of Ascension and Pentecost, without with Pascha loses its power and purpose. 

 

The Feast of Ascension - somewhat neglected and overlooked - will also mark our parish return to the celebration of the Divine Liturgy and thus of the Eucharist. We are still quite restricted in our actual worshipers in the church, but we are certain that we are moving toward a fuller reopening in the days ahead. 

 

We have some great resources on our parish website for Ascension, including many beautiful icons and some "classic" articles on the meaning of the feast. I would highly recommend that you carefully read the article by Fr. George Florovsky that you will find posted there. You will never look at the Ascension the same way once you read Fr. Florovsky!

https://www.christthesavioroca.org/ascension

Memorial Day - So far we are enjoying a beautiful Memorial Day here in the tri-state area. I hope you all enjoy the day as well as possible. At yesterday morning's service we added a short Memorial Service for the departed in honor of this civil observance. We prayed for both men and women who have lost their lives in military service to their country. It is a genuine sacrifice. Those are painful and unforgettable losses especially for the family members who have lost someone in this manner. Presvytera and I still vividly recall the funeral of a young man in our parish in Detroit who was killed in Vietnam many years ago now. Perhaps everyone else has such a painful memory. But we also prayed yesterday for the countless innocent victims of war - men, women and children - caught up in the horrors of occupation, combat, rapacity, reprisals and simply wanton destruction. Innocent victims are not "collateral damage" - they are all human beings who became tragic victims of causes far beyond their capacity to control or escape. However we approach the concept of a "just war," deep down we all know that "war is hell" as it has been strikingly captured once and for all in that timeless definition. 

We should not lose sight of the connection between the paschal nature of the Church's witness to the world and Memorial Day - or any Memorial Service.  "Memory Eternal" is not a pious phrase reminding us that we will always retain "good memories" of our lost loved ones. It is a bold affirmation that every human being is contained within the "memory" of the eternal and loving God who has revealed Himself most fully in Christ. If a human being is eternally "remembered" by God, then that person is never lost to the ravages of history and time. The Resurrection of Christ - the passage from death to life - is the eternal pledge of the gathering together of all human being from ages past in the Memory of God.

 

 

 

Encountering Christ through the Samaritan Woman

Dear Parish Faithful & Friends in Christ,

Christ is Risen!

Indeed He is Risen!

 

 

In this post-paschal week as we approach the Feast of the Ascension and Pentecost, we continue to explore the wonderful dialogue and encounter between Christ and the woman of Samaria (Jn. 4:1-42). 

 

I will admit that this is one of my "favorite" passages in the entire Bible. I would like to therefore share some further insights into this endlessly rich passage from the Gospel according to St. John. To appreciate this passage all the more, we need to bear in mind that Jesus overcame two strict boundaries in this meeting: 

 

1) Openly speaking with a woman while alone in her presence ("They marveled that he was talking with a woman"); and 

 

2) speaking with a Samaritan ("For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans"). 

 

In this one encounter, Jesus elevates the role and status of women by speaking to her of divine mysteries. He also elevates the role and status of non-Jews by revealing himself to the Samaritans as the "Savior of the world." 

Concerning the dialogue with a woman, Origen (+254) wrote the following in his Commentary on the Gospel of St. John:

We know that he is meek and lowly of heart (Matt. 11:29) and does not disdain to speak of such great matters with a woman carrying water who goes out of the city because of her great poverty and labors to draw water for herself. When the disciples arrive they are amazed, for they previously beheld the greatness of the divinity in him, and they marvel that so great a man  was speaking with a woman. We, however, carried away with pride and arrogance, despise those below us and forget that the words "Let us make man according to our image and likeness" apply to each person. 

- COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 13.166-67.

As to speaking with a Samaritan, St. John Chrysostom (+407), said the following in one of his homilies on the Gospel of St. John:

...And so the woman, on being told, "Give me a drink,"  very naturally asks, "How is that you, being a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" ... She knew he was a Jew from his appearance and speech.  

Observe how considerate she is here. For even if the Lord had been bound to abstain from dealing with her, that was his concern, not hers. The Evangelist does not say that the Samaritans would have no dealings with the Jews but that the Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. The woman, however, though not at fault herself, wished to correct what she thought was done unlawfully.

- HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN 31.2,4.

Somewhat randomly, I would like to also include a fine passage from a contemporary biblical scholar, Brendan Byrne, from his book Life Abounding - A Reading of John's Gospel. At the conclusion of their dialogue, the Samaritan woman returns to her town and says to her fellow townsfolk: "Come and see a man who has told me all I have ever done. Can this one be the Christ?" As to her question, Byrne writes: "The opening Greek negative participle, meti, need not necessarily foresee a negative answer. It can express a cautious opinion designed to stimulate reflection." 

But I would like to concentrate on Byrne's paragraph developing the phrase "come and see:"

"Come and see" echoes the invitation of Jesus to the first two disciples (1:39), as also Philip's invitation to the initially reluctant Nathanael (1:46). More significant still is the reason the woman gives for coming to see the one with whom she has been speaking: he has told her all she has ever done (v. 29b). That is the literal meaning of the Greek and doubtless refers to Jesus' knowledge of her private life that led to her regarding him as a prophet.  But to leave the statement there would miss something of a possible wider meaning. 

I have seen it translated, "Come and see a man who has told me the story of my life," a rendering far more truly expressive of the conversion that the woman has undergone. Jesus has taken the broken fragments of her life and shown that they can be part of a wider pattern of meaning in which her personal story and that of her people can be gathered up into the transcendent narrative being worked out in his mission from the Father. Her life, in its failures and deviations no less than in its strengths and successes, has meaning and value within the wider "great story" of salvation.

- Life Abounding, p. 87

We need to imagine just how different the Samaritan woman was after her dialogue and encounter with Christ at Jacob's well. She went to the well for the prosaic but essential task of drawing water for herself and her family. She returned with great enthusiasm believing that she had met the Christ! Her quest for natural water led her to drink of "living water." Truly, as Brendan Byrne writes, this was a "conversion!" 

 

I believe that if we could "slow down" our rushing lives just a bit, then we can enter into a dialogue with Christ that will be a real encounter that quenches our thirst for something truly meaningful - the "living water" that Christ promises. That dialogue and encounter are possible through faith and prayer, strengthened by the reading of the Holy Scriptures.

 

 

 

Notes from our recent class, 'The Common Characteristics of the Risen Lord'

Dear Parish Faithful,

Christ is Risen! 
Indeed He is Risen!



Apostles Peter and John at the Empty Tomb

You will find an attachment here that we used for this past Wednesday's zoom class, "The Common Characteristics of the Risen Lord." This chart gives us a full account of the various "places" the Risen Christ appeared, which include:

• Tomb Area
• An unnamed section with only the reference to the appearance to Simon (Lk. 24:34)
• Country Road
• Jerusalem
• Galilee

Our main concern was with with the "common characteristics" of these appearances. As you read through these particular texts, try and come up with some of the common elements that occur more than once.

• Think especially in terms of the meals that the risen Christ shares with his disciples. 
• How do these meals relate to our own Liturgy? 
• What differences exist between Jesus appearing to his male disciples and to the myrrh bearing women? 
• Why does Jesus tell Mary Magdalene: "Do not touch (or cling) to me?"

The common characteristics of the Risen Lord - sounds like a discussion with some potential ...

Fr. Steven

* See also: Notes from our class, 'The Myrrhbearing Women and the Empty Tomb'

Where did the Paschal Troparion Come From?

Dear Parish Faithful,

Christ is Risen!

Indeed He is Risen!

 

 

I am currently reading a fine study by Archbishop Ilarion Alfeyev (Russian Orthodox Church), entitled: Christ the Conqueror of Hell - the Descent into Hades from an Orthodox Perspective. Actually, it is an outstanding study in which a detailed survey of this theme from multiple sources - the New Testament, apocryphal literature, early Christian poetry, patristic literature and Church hymnography - clearly reveals just how central it is to the Church's proclamation of the Gospel: the Good News that Christ "has destroyed death by death." That phrase is, of course, from the paschal troparion which we all know and love so well.

I have always wondered about the origin of that troparion, meaning just when and where does it come from? And, lo and behold, Archbishop Ilarion addresses this question in a subsection of the book's opening chapter, under the heading of: "Early Christian Poetry."

Actually, not all questions are answered in his brief survey, but he offers an explanation that shows how intertwined the various elements just listed are brought together to shape our final liturgical expressions. Instead of trying to paraphrase him, I will simply cite the relevant passage so that you may also find an answer to that question: from whence to we derive that "hymn of all paschal hymns?" Archbishop Ilarion begins as follows:

The themes of Christ's descent into Hades and his victory over hell and death are treated extensively in surviving early Christian poetry. We do not know precisely when the short hymn known as the Easter troparion was composed. It is likely, however, that it was already written in the second century (similar hymns, or "tropes," which were paraphrases of texts from Scripture, were an inseparable part of early Christian services) and it continues to be used in the services of the Orthodox Church: "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life."

This hymn reflects a theological idea formed in the second century by St. Irenaeus of Lyons, that the redemptory sacrifice of Christ, the second Adam, is a "recapitulation" (i.e., a backward reproduction) of the life of the first-created Adam. who personifies all mankind. In order to "restore in himself all people who came from Adam, all nations and mankind along with Adam himself," Christ systematically goes through all the main stages of human life so that the effects of the fall of Adam might be corrected in each of them. By his becoming the "first-born of the dead," Christ renews people for the divine life, "having himself become the first of the living, just as Adam became the first of the dying." (Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies 3, 20, 3) Christ's death therefore becomes a victory over death, and his resurrection brings life and resurrection to the dead. The doctrine of Christ's descent into Hades is later developed in works of liturgical poetry precisely in this vein.
(Christ the Conqueror of Hell, pp. 34-35.)

 

Again, perhaps not an exact pronouncement on the origins of the paschal troparion - which even Archbishop Ilarion states "we do not know precisely" - but a convincing conjecture that the hymn could go back as far as the second century, because the emerging theological Tradition of the Church began to clearly elucidate the teaching of the descent of Christ into Hades in order to "destroy death by death." The Fathers of the Church further developed the salvific content of that descent or, we could say, the human consequences of that victory over death, by stating that those lost in the realm of Hades/death had life "bestowed" upon them. From such a convergence of powerful expressions of Christian faith, it is clear just how the paschal troparion could emerge as a short, but definitive, statement of how we conceive and proclaim that Christ is the Conqueror of Hell.

This is a book worth reading!