Our Lord Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, has ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God the Father. He, possessing the Divine nature as the Son of God, has ascended with His human nature as well – and so, as Adam once lived in the intimate presence of God, so now does our human nature once more draw near to God, in and through our Lord Jesus Christ. A great part of our hope as Christians is that we, too, can approach God, Who has drawn near to us, as did Adam before the Fall. But in order to do so, we must be “in Christ” – that is, we must make real in our own lives the nature that Christ has healed and raised, and with which has ascended into heaven. We must take the life of Christ given to us in our baptism, and bring it into being in and through our own lives.
Brothers and sisters, we are meant to ascend into heaven – that is, we are meant to enter the intimate presence of God. This world is not our home. This material existence that we know is only part of the reality in which we are meant to live. But as long as we cling to the things of this world, as long as we are tied to the ways of the world, the flesh, and the devil, as long as we are weighed down by the cares and concerns of this material, earthly, fleshly life, we cannot rise; we cannot ascend the heights; we cannot enter the presence of God.
How do we set ourselves free from all that weighs us down, and keeps us from ascending? We must believe what we are taught by the Church; and we must put what we believe into action. We must believe that God is our Creator and Lord. We must believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has come and joined His divinity to our humanity, and that He died to save us, putting death to death, so that we might have life that does not end. We must believe that the Holy Spirit has come to make known to us the truths that save, and to empower us in our life of faith.
And we must put what we believe into action. We must labor to be more and more like Christ: showing forth His obedience – for He said He did not come to do His own will, but the will of God the Father, Who sent Him. As well, we must show forth His holiness, for He did not sin; and His patience and His love. We make a start in all these things by obedience to the way of life we are taught by the Church: a life of prayer and fasting, of giving and struggle, of loving each other, and God above all. By praying, we grow closer to God. Remember, when you spend time with a person, you tend to take on the qualities of that person – and so by spending time with God in prayer, we become more like Him, in Whose image we are made. By fasting and self-denial, we set ourselves free from the passions of our flesh, and so strengthen ourselves against the sins these passions will otherwise lead us to commit. By giving, we set ourselves free from the material possessions of this world, and from greed, and envy, among other things. By humility, we set ourselves free from pride. By loving and caring for all who are made in the image of God, we show not only our love for God, but the love of God for us; we make known the reality of God’s love among those who do not yet know this truth. By doing so, we make it possible for them to come to believe what we believe, and to adopt the way of life that we have chosen; and so bring them to share with us the way by which our souls are saved.
Brothers and sisters, Christ has gone up into heaven; and He has shown us the way we are to follow. Let us do so with faith and love; to the glory of God, and the salvation of souls.
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