by Fr Gabriel-Allan Boyd
Christ is ascended! From earth to heaven!
From the very beginning, our Lord said that He created humanity, ‘according to God’s image, to be like God’ (Genesis 1:26). Jesus Christ is the model for what we are to become like—“If you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father” (John 14:9). And right there you have it. Created in God’s image, to grow into God’s likeness gives us the secret to what gives meaning to our life—the very purpose of our lives. And by God’s grace, for two thousand years, the Orthodox Christian Tradition has helped shape and sustain the most beautiful, transcendent, life-transforming praxis to elevate humanity toward God’s likeness. It was intended to mystically transport us—and through us—the entire world toward that reality of union with Him. As His adopted children, He lovingly provided His Church for us, so that we could become, by His grace, what Christ is by nature—God’s likeness.
However, there was a different ancient attempt at god-likeness that has had dark and tragic consequences for us. The evil-one first introduced this temptation to our ancient ancestors—Adam & Eve (Genesis 3:5)—to become gods unto themselves, apart from God. Of course, most of us are aware, that belief had catastrophic consequences for them. And yet, in modern times, there’s been a new, more sophisticated-looking version of this ancient attempt to drag us down into that same distortion of God’s intention for us—transhumanism.
We see the beginnings of the world’s romance of transhumanism with the popular 1970s TV show, called The Six Million Dollar Man. There, after astronaut, Colonel Steve Austin, had been in a serious supersonic jet crash, suffering severe injuries—including the loss of some limbs—the show’s opening catchphrase had the narrator saying, “We can rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better, than he was. Better, stronger, faster.” And after a series of surgeries, giving him new, bionic parts (costing a whopping total of six million dollars), Steve Austin acquires superhuman powers. Now there’s nothing wrong with giving injured people better, more effective prosthetics, to help give them a better quality of life. The distortion comes when we begin to believe that these kinds of technical solutions make us more than human (better than how God made us)…a means of exceeding our human limitations in order to make the world a place that gratifies our own aims.
Transhumanism is the desire to use technological transcendence to make humans better, smarter, stronger, faster, impervious to any illness, etc...to make us like gods. To this day, that ancient rip-off artist, the devil, continues reintroducing that same temptation to us in new and deviant ways—always packaging it so that it looks somehow different and better than the last time it was introduced to us. While God wants for us to be lifted up into His likeness through unity with His Son…conversely, that snake—the arch-fraud—continues tempting us with the idea that by doing some particular thing, we could become just like God apart from God…gods unto ourselves. With boundless passion, we often unwittingly subscribe to this false idealism—which is, sadly at the heart of everything that unravels and deteriorates and brings us to our own ultimate destruction.
Science continues to add glowing new features to this romantic notion. Some industry experts in various types of technical know-how, from nutrition, to fitness, to drugs, to synthetics, to plastic surgery, to bionics, to artificial intelligence, to sexual and “gender” distortions continue to sidetrack us—diverting our attention away from the purpose for which we were created—to grow in God’s likeness ascending with Him (the meaning of life). And thus, to their own ruin, people continue to develop new ways to reinvent themselves apart from God’s will. It’s as though the world (participating with the evil one) is continuing to pass along to us the original lie that says, “Come on…you know you’re better than Him! You can discern for yourself what’s good or evil. After all those who have failed miserably at being a god in past times, you’re, finally, the one who can do all this successfully. You’re finally the one who can do this in vastly superior ways than how God’s been doing it!” But, the problem is that, without exception, we’re all far too small to be gods apart from God…and because of that, when we’re left to our own devices, we will always, ALWAYS, make a mess of being god, tragically leading us to our own self-destruction. And what’s most sad to realize is that, we often pass that illusion down to our own children.
Conversely, it’s healthy for us to realize that there’s something natural in our desire to become like God…as long as it’s “according to God’s likeness”—to be with Him and in Him. It’s what we were created for. And that’s the Good News of Christ’s bodily Ascension. It’s the place where humanity can finally come to understand its right direction, to ascend to be near God’s throne with and in Jesus Christ. For our sakes, Christ does what Adam was meant to do. We, in our human flesh were always meant to be deified through God and in God. But, this is only possible because Christ took on human flesh, “emptying Himself in the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:7). The Ascension is the end-effect of that. Through Christ, human flesh (and therefore all of matter—from which human flesh was created—Genesis 2:7) is filled with the 2nd Person of the Trinity and is now glorified at the side of the Father. When the Archangel Gabriel gave his Announcement to the Theotokos, our Lord condescended to earth naked—without human flesh…and today, on the Feast of Ascension, He now ascends to Heaven fully clothed in human flesh—raising our human nature with Him in God. Forty days after Christ’s birth, as the firstborn son, He was taken by His mother, up to the earthly temple to be presented as set apart to God the Father…and now, forty days after His resurrection, “The Firstborn From The Dead” is taken up to the Heavenly temple to present His human nature, as set apart unto God…and sanctified.
Today, Christ’s Ascension is the key that opens up the mystery of our salvation. Just as Adam’s fall opened humanity’s entry to hades (darkness & death) …so also, Christ—the Second Adam—opened the way for our entrance into Heaven. Thus, we begin to understand here that God’s Son didn’t descend to earth, taking on human flesh so that He could give us a new system of morality, or a better understanding of Old Testament Law, or a new religion…but rather, so that He could make all things new—raising us up from corruptible to incorruptible and glorifying and deifying us in Himself. The Good News is that through our Lord—the Second Adam—we too may be glorified when, through the grace of the Holy Spirit, we unite ourselves with Him in His will…and thus Ascending in Him to that Heavenly temple, to present ourselves as set apart unto God. Thus, by His grace we too may be deified.
And so, as we are being unified with Him in this Ascension today, we’re reminded of our Lord’s last words to His disciples (Acts 1:8)… that after we receive the Holy Spirit, we are to be His witnesses…to carry out His mission, first into our surrounding community, and from there, radiating outward on into the world.
Relatedly, what stands-out to us in the icon of the Ascension, is not only our Lord, but also the Theotokos and the two angels, centrally placed among Christ’s disciples. It’s remarkable that our Church’s Tradition has them standing out more prominently in this icon than anyone else around them. This is especially noteworthy because, in the biblical account (Acts 1:1-12 & Luke 24:36-53) of the Ascension, the Theotokos isn’t even at this scene. And yet, because she’s the “First Among Equals” of all the saints, the Church Fathers want us to realize that she leads the way as someone whose flesh is transformed and deified by her unity with her Son... and thus, she continues bearing Him forth into the world, showing us what it means to live in unity with Him. What’s most prominent in this icon’s message to us about the Ascension? The Theotokos stands with those two conspicuous angels in this icon, as if to say to us, ‘Why are you all still standing around here, just looking into the air? You have a mission to accomplish. As Christ’s witnesses, ascend with Him by bearing Him forth into the world!’