On the Lord’s Ascension, First Sermon

Since the blessed and glorious resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the divine power raised up in three days the true Temple of God that the wickedness of the Jews had overthrown, the sacred forty days, dearly beloved, end today. By a most holy appointment they were given over to our most profitable instruction, so that, while the Lord thus lengthened the lingering of his bodily presence, our faith in the resurrection might be strengthened by the proofs it needed. For Christ’s death had greatly disturbed the disciples’ hearts, and a kind of numbness of distrust had crept over their grief-laden minds at his torture on the cross, at his giving up his spirit, and at the burial of his lifeless body. For when the holy women, as the gospel story has made known, brought word of the stone rolled away from the tomb, the grave emptied of the body, and the angels bearing witness to the living Lord, their words seemed like raving to the apostles and the other disciples. The Spirit of Truth would certainly not have allowed this doubt, which came from human weakness, to exist in the hearts of his own preachers, if their trembling anxiety and careful hesitation had not laid the foundations of our faith. It was our perplexities and our dangers that were provided for in the apostles; it was we ourselves who, in these men, were taught how to meet the quibbles of the ungodly and the arguments of earthly wisdom. We are instructed by their seeing, we are taught by their hearing, we are convinced by their touching. Let us give thanks to the divine management, and to the holy fathers’ necessary slowness to believe. Others doubted, so that we might not doubt. [a]

So those days, dearly beloved, that came between the Lord’s resurrection and his ascension did not pass by in idle leisure. Great mysteries were confirmed in them, and deep truths revealed. In them the fear of dreadful death was removed, and the immortality not only of the soul but also of the flesh was established. In them, through the Lord’s breathing on them, the Holy Spirit is poured out on all the apostles, and to the blessed apostle Peter, beyond the rest, the care of the Lord’s flock is entrusted, in addition to the keys of the kingdom. Then it was that the Lord joined the two disciples as a companion on the road, and, to sweep away all the clouds of our uncertainty, rebuked them for the slowness of their fearful hearts. Their enlightened hearts catch the flame of faith, and, lukewarm as they have been, are made to burn while the Lord unfolds the Scriptures. In the breaking of bread, too, their eyes are opened as they eat with him. How much more blessed is the opening of their eyes, to whom the glorifying of their nature is revealed, than that of our first parents, on whom fell the disastrous consequences of their transgression! [b]

And in the course of these and other miracles, the disciples were troubled by bewildering thoughts, and the Lord appeared in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” Then, so that what was passing through their hearts might not become their settled opinion (for they thought they saw a spirit and not flesh), he refutes their thoughts, so out of tune with the truth. He offers to the doubters’ eyes the marks of the cross that remained in his hands and feet, and invites them to handle him and examine him carefully. For the traces of the nails and the spear had been kept to heal the wounds of unbelieving hearts, so that, not with wavering faith but with most steadfast knowledge, they might grasp that the nature that had lain in the tomb was to sit on the throne of God the Father. [c]

Accordingly, dearly beloved, through all this time between the Lord’s resurrection and his ascension, God’s Providence had this in view: to teach and impress on both the eyes and the hearts of his own people that the Lord Jesus Christ was to be acknowledged as truly risen as he was truly born, suffered, and died. And so the most blessed apostles and all the disciples, who had been both bewildered by his death on the cross and slow to believe his resurrection, were so strengthened by the clearness of the truth that when the Lord entered the heights of heaven, they were not only touched by no sadness but were even filled with great joy. And truly great and unspeakable was their cause for joy when, in the sight of the holy multitude, the nature of mankind went up above the dignity of all heavenly creatures, to pass above the ranks of the angels and to rise beyond the heights of the archangels, its lifting up limited by no height until, received to sit with the eternal Father, it should be joined on the throne with the glory of him to whose nature it was united in the Son. Since, then, Christ’s ascension is our uplifting, and the hope of the body is raised to where the glory of the Head has gone before, let us exult, dearly beloved, with fitting joy, and delight in the loyal paying of thanks. For today we are not only confirmed as possessors of paradise, but have also in Christ entered the heights of heaven, and have gained still greater things through Christ’s unspeakable grace than we had lost through the devil’s malice. For us, whom our venomous enemy had driven out from the happiness of our first home, the Son of God has made members of himself and placed at the right hand of the Father, with whom he lives and reigns in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever. Amen.