Catechesis · Inquirer
Ascension and Pentecost
Catechesis · Inquirer
Ascension and Pentecost
The Ascension completed the elevation of human nature: the incarnate Son, bearing our flesh, was enthroned at the Father's right hand. Human nature is now in God — not metaphorica…
Question
What did the Ascension and Pentecost accomplish?
The Ascension completed the elevation of human nature: the incarnate Son, bearing our flesh, was enthroned at the Father's right hand. Human nature is now in God — not metaphorically, but in the Person of the Son who never ceased to be human after the Incarnation. And at Pentecost, the Spirit was poured out — God's life given to dwell within every believer and animate the Church as Christ's body on earth.
The Ascension is not Christ leaving. It is Christ going ahead — to prepare a place, to intercede for us, to send the Spirit. And Pentecost is not the Spirit coming instead of Christ. It is Christ becoming present in a new mode — from within, through the Spirit, in every believer and in the community of the Church.
The teaching
Human nature enthroned — the Spirit poured out
The Ascension answers a question the Resurrection raises: what happened to the risen Christ? He did not remain among His disciples permanently. He ascended — went up — to the Father. The cloud that received Him is the cloud of divine glory, the same shekinah that filled the Temple. He entered the heavenly sanctuary, and there He intercedes for us as our eternal High Priest.
Pentecost — fifty days after Pascha — is the birth of the Church as a Spirit-filled community. The Holy Spirit descended on the gathered disciples as tongues of fire, and they spoke in the languages of every nation gathered in Jerusalem. This is the reversal of Babel: where human speech was scattered and confused, here it is gathered and made intelligible. The Spirit creates the universal community.
Thou hast ascended in glory, O Christ our God, having gladdened Thy disciples with the promise of the Holy Spirit. Through Thy blessing they were assured that Thou art the Son of God, the Redeemer of the world.
The troparion of the Ascension holds the two events together: the departure and the promise. Christ ascends — and in ascending, He gives the promise of the Spirit. The disciples are not abandoned; they are given something greater. The physical presence of Christ gave way to the inner presence of the Spirit — God with us in a deeper mode than even the incarnate life permitted.
Troparion of the Ascension
Feast of the Ascension · Forty days after Pascha
Holy Scripture
"When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house."
Acts 2:1–2
"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."
Acts 1:8
The Church and the Spirit
What Pentecost means for every Christian's daily life
The Spirit poured out at Pentecost did not go away. He abides — in the Church, in every baptised person, in the sacraments, in the word of Scripture as it is read and proclaimed. The Christian is not someone who remembers what God did in the past. The Christian is someone in whom God is present and active right now, through the Spirit who was given at Pentecost and who continues to be given in baptism and chrismation.