Ascension Reflections
May 9, 2024
The Ascension, School of Nottingham
From a sermon, “The Ascension of Our Lord,” by the Rev. William Graham:
In the beautiful panorama of hill country that unrolls to the eye of a pilgrim looking eastward from Jerusalem there is no point of view so picturesque or at the same time so rich in sacred memories, as Mount Olivet. Rough and narrow is the stony path winding to its summit, but its many associations more than repay the cost of ascent. On its lower slopes lies the Garden of Olives, lovingly tended by the Franciscan Fathers, who point out the spots in and around where Christ’s agony and prayer began and ended. The brook Cedron that He crossed with His disciples on the sad night of His betrayal He must also have passed in His risen body on His way to the hill, whence while they looked on He was raised up. Alas! a Mohammedan mosque now crowns the spot, and the followers of the prophet point out by favor a stone bearing the imprint of a foot, which, piety suggests, was left by the ascending Christ. Even they, however, reverence the spot consecrated by the last steps on earth of the great prophet Issa.
Since the day when St. Helena built a splendid church on the Holy Hill, whence the ” new ark of alliance” was carried to the ” royal city that is above,” the Church has, every year, on the feast we keep today, solemnly expressed her belief in this final manifestation of Him who ” showed himself alive after his passion, by many proofs, for forty days appearing to them, and speaking of the kingdom of God” (Acts i. 3). “Forty hours,” says St. Thomas, “He lay a corpse in the tomb, and forty days he walked and talked among His friends.”
We all are “glad and rejoice “today in the glory of our crucified and risen Saviour, and our thoughts mount to the rising, cloud-encircling form of the conquering and triumphant Christ as, clothed in His human nature, He moves towards ” light inaccessible.” In the joy we feel in His victory over sin and death, we realize the force of His parting words: “If you loved me, you would indeed be glad, because I go to the Father” (John xiv. 28). Heaven, not earth, was His true goal and resting-place, once He had risen from the grave. It was only out of condescension to the needs of the infant Church that He tarried forty days on earth.
[….]
We have been dealing today with facts and inferences which, in view of the aims and pursuits that occupy the world of our times, may seem strange and unmeaning, the echoes almost of an unknown and unintelligible tongue. It is like going up into cloudland. The words of the angel to the disciples are often said to us in reproach: “Men of Galilee, why stand you looking up to heaven?” This Jesus is taken away from you as any other. Look down to earth. It is the only heaven we are sure of. Seek not the things that are above as empty gazers of the sky. Look only to the visible and the present. This is the gospel we often hear preached today, and which finds, alas! a ready echo in many a heart. Faith and hope and love based on heavenly motion are the transcendent gifts of the Holy Glost seen spurned or neglected. The natural man understandeth not the things that are of God. A holy life, a supernatural life, is deemed visionary, idle, superstitious. If there is to be any virtue at all, it is to be only within the sphere of sense and nature to round and perfect both, such as the manly virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude, provided they strike not deeper nor rise higher than the life that “now is.”
It is idle to speak of the expediency of the Ascension or, indeed, of the supernatural at all to such as these; nor do I, except by way of warning. We live in an age of no belief, or half belief, or make belief. But the truth, ” The word of the Lord endureth forever,” and our attitude towards it, can make no difference. God is still in the world, behind its forces, and guiding and controlling them, even though men neither see nor believe in Him. Men and women are still His creatures, the works of His hands–adorned with grace and destined for glory. We are on earth, it is true, but our eyes and heads, aye, and hearts too, point to the skies. No sophist, nor school of sophists, with all their arts of style and argument, have ever yet persuaded mankind at large that life ends at the grave, and that the happiness we crave and strive for and can never reach on earth is an empty dream, never to be realized. No! God made nothing in vain. We are made and destined for a higher, larger, and nobler life than the present, of which the Ascension forcibly reminds us. It reminds us, too, of the life of grace, the life of true, pure holiness over and above mere natural rectitude, a necessary precedent to the life of glory; and which our Lord, by withdrawing Himself visibly, enables us, if we will, to live.
Let us therefore lift up our hearts to heaven where Christ has gone “to prepare a place for us.” We have not seen Him ascend; but we know by faith He is there. He is the head of the mystic body of which we are members, and limbs should join the head. “Ubi caput praecessit ibi spes vocatur et corporis.” Be faithful, then, to grace, lead a life not of pleasure, but of duty. Peace is only found where God placed it–in a dutiful, self-denying life. ” Therefore,” in the words of St. Paul, “if you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above; where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God: Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth. . . . When Christ shall appear, who is your life, then you also shall appear with him in glory” (Col.iii. 1,2,4).
