Ascension

Themes

• Christ’s coronation
• the Resurrection/restoration of Humanity
  • Humanity’s coronation in Christ

Cloud Language

• Somewhat similar to the baal language, an inversion as Fr De Young would say. the-baal-book
• Daniel 7 The Ancient of Days and the Son of Man

Epistles

Eph 4.7–10 Christ fills all things. Quoting Psalm 67.19/68.18

Gospels

Mark 16.19 In the Ascension Christ sat down at the right hand of God.

Resources

John Behr Sermon in The Cross Stands, While the World Turns

Jesus’ ascension is obscure, witnessed only by his disciples. All the major events show divine humility, his birth unheralded by men, only a few shephards and wisemen see it. His death the most public of these events and it is a shameful one, where he is abandoned by his disciples. His Resurrection only known by a few.

St Ignatius To the Romans

Paragraph 3: He asks to be given the opportunity to be a Christian in reality and not repute by his martyrdom. Yet once he has the reality he then can have the reputation “and be held loyal and true even when the world can see me no longer” just as “the fact that Jesus Christ is now within the Father is why we perceive him so much the more clearly”

“[Christianity] is no affair of persuasive speaking; Christianity lies in achieving greatness in the face of a world’s hatred”

Synxarion

Thou didst sit at the right hand of the Father, O Word, Granting Thine initiates a faith far more steadfast.

Great Entrance

In the Great Entrance the priest when he picks up the chalice says “God is gone up in jubilation, the Lord with the voice of the trumpet.” which is the Prokeimenon from the Ascension Orthros Psalm 46.

Ancient Commentary Series Acts:

“The Teaching that Jessus, in his transformed humanity, is present with the Father, is frequently found in the New Testament.” Phil 3:20-21; But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. (ESV)

Eph 4:10; But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says,

“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.”

(In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, (ESV)

1 Tim 3:16; Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness:

He was manifested in the flesh,
	vindicated by the Spirit,
		seen by angels,
proclaimed among the nations,
	believed on in the world,
		taken up in glory. (ESV)

Heb 9:11-12;

Hebrews 9:11–28

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.” And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. (ESV)

Heb 10:19-21.
Hebrews 10:19–25

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (ESV)