Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you

Now as they said these things, Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them, and said to them, "Peace to you."  But they were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit.  And He said to them, "Why are you troubled?  And why do doubts arise in your hearts?  Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself.  Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have."  When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet.  But while they still did not believe for joy, and marveled, He said to them, "Have you any food here?"  So they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish and some honeycomb.  And He took it and ate in their presence.

Then He said to them, "These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me."  And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.  Then He said to them, "Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.  And you are witnesses of these things.  Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high."

And He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them.  Now it came to pass, while He blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up to heaven.  And they worshiped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God.  Amen.

- Luke 24:36-53

Yesterday we read that after hearing the stories of the women about their encounter with the angels at the empty tomb, Peter arose and ran to the tomb; and stooping down, he saw the linen cloths lying by themselves; and he departed, marveling to himself what had happened.  Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem.  And they talked together of all these things which had happened.  So it was, while they conversed and reasoned, that Jesus Himself drew near and went with them.  But their eyes were restrained, so that they did not know Him.  And He said to them, "What kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk and are sad?"  Then the one whose name was Cleopas answered and said to Him, "Are You the only stranger in Jerusalem, and have You not known the things which happened there in these days?"  And He said to them, "What things?"  So they said to Him, "The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a Prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him.  But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel.  Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened.  Yes, and certain women of our company, who arrived at the tomb early, astonished us.  When they did not find His body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said He was alive.  And certain of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but Him they did not see."  Then He said to them, "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!  Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?"  And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.  Then they drew near to the village where they were going, and He indicated that He would have gone farther.  But they constrained Him, saying, "Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent."  And He went in to stay with them.  Now it came to pass, as He sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.  Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight.  And they said to one another, "Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?"  So they rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, "The Lord is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!"  And they told about the things that had happened on the road, and how He was known to them in the breaking of bread.

Now as they said these things, Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them, and said to them, "Peace to you."   My study bible notes that this resurrectional greeting of Christ, Peace to you,  is proclaimed by a priest or bishop frequently in worship services.  We recall Christ's teaching as He sent out the Seventy on their first mission:  "But whatever house you enter, first say, 'Peace to this house.' And if a son of peace is there, your peace will rest on it; if not, it will return to you" (10:5-6).

But they were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit.  And He said to them, "Why are you troubled?  And why do doubts arise in your hearts?  Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself.  Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have."  When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet.  But while they still did not believe for joy, and marveled, He said to them, "Have you any food here?"  So they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish and some honeycomb.  And He took it and ate in their presence.  My study bible says that Christ eats not because He in His resurrected body needs food, but to prove to the disciples that He is truly risen in the flesh.  There is a spiritual significance to the elements of food Christ eats:  the fish is associated with active virtue, and the honeycomb is the sweetness of divine wisdom. 

Then He said to them, "These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me."  And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.  Then He said to them, "Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.  And you are witnesses of these things."  Christ puts emphasis (as He did to the two apostles in the story of the road to Emmaus in yesterday's reading; see above) on the necessary condition of the Christ to both suffer and rise.   My study bible reminds us that it is only a partial faith to include one without the other.  The remission of sins, according to my study bible, refers to the putting away of sins in baptism, which is preached by St. Peter at Pentecost (see Acts 2:38).

"Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high."  The Greek for endued with means to "put on" as in putting on clothing.  It is the same verb used in Ephesians 6:11, which indicates the complete protection of spiritual armor.  The word in Greek for tarry means literally to sit down, which my study bible says is an instruction not only to stay in place, but also to take rest and to prepare attentively before a great and difficult task (compare Mark 14:32).  The Promise of My Father is the Holy Spirit (see Acts 1:4). 

And He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them.  Now it came to pass, while He blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up to heaven.  And they worshiped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God.  Amen.   Bethany, we recall, is east of Jerusalem, and was the home of Lazarus and his sisters, Lazarus being the one whom Christ raised from the dead (see John 11).  The Ascension of Christ is celebrated forty days after the Resurrection (Acts 1:3).  My study bible notes that this event fulfills the type which was given when Elijah ascended  in a fiery chariot (2 Kings 2:11).  This marks the completion of Christ's glorification and lordship over all creation, all of the cosmos.  At the Incarnation, my study bible says, Christ brought His divine nature to human nature.  But in the Ascension, He brings human nature into the divine Kingdom, essential to our understanding of our place in the entire order of life itself, "seen and unseen," as human beings.  My study bible says that He reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit in His glorified body, revealing His glorified human nature -- even human flesh -- to be worshiped by the whole angelic realm.  An Orthodox vespers hymn of this feast proclaims, "The angels were amazed to see a Man so exalted."  In many icons and other depictions of the Ascension, Christ's robes are tinted with red, indicating the shedding of His blood for the redemption of the world, and also the ascent of that life-giving blood into heaven (Isaiah 63:1-3; see also Psalm 24:7-10).

Our Gospel comes to an end in today's reading.  But this is not an "end" in a conventional sense, and it's not an "end" also because of the ways in which the Greek of the Gospels renders our understanding of what "end" truly means.   For in the language of the Gospels, and also in the truth of the story of the Gospel and Jesus Christ, "end" has a particular meaning.  In Luke 22:37, Jesus says that "the things concerning Me have an end."  This word for end is τελος/telos in the Greek.  Telos does not mean "end" in the sense of the English word.  Telos, rather, means "end" in the sense of fulfillment.  It is an end because it is fully completed, it has gone as far as it can go, the fullness of a drawn out process -- that means only that all the things of Christ are fulfilled.  And that "end" of Christ is Ascension, which is but a beginning, and a beginning to an infinite and absolute change that we cannot comprehensively know nor categorize, so much does it affect the very foundation of all things, including the spiritual world and the Kingdom.    Telos is an end in the sense of the aim, purpose, or goal of something.  And here we come to our sense in which this is the "end" of the story of Christ.  It begins the "end times" in which we still live, in which the Kingdom of God and the work of the Holy Spirit in the world (the Promise of My Father) continue their unfolding, and the mission of the Church.  It is the "end times" in which Christ's glorified humanity becomes a part of heaven, of the Kingdom, and the angels are astonished, for even they did not expect this kind of end -- which is in reality a new beginning which is always being fulfilled.  It is a revelation of our very natures and what they might be made for.  In the Ascension, we find the hope of Christianity, for if humanity in the person of Jesus Christ is glorified, then we, too, may follow, as He has taught us:  "And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself" (see John 12:31-33).  Christ's Ascension as an "end" teaches us that all of our "ends" may also be but beginnings, for in Him all things are transcended.  We are not left merely with an ending, but rather a kind of infinite beginning that traverses all limitations in and of the nature given to Christ even as Jesus, in His humanity, and therefore to the rest of us.  The gift of the Holy Spirit will secure for us an infinite kind of creativity, whereby we are assured that when we are crucified by the world, when we carry our own crosses and something dies for us in our lives, whatever it may be, we still have a future -- with faith -- that we can't calculate in its possibilities.  We have a future that transcends our own expectations of limits and ends, for we are clothed with purpose, a future fulfillment, a face and identity we don't yet know (Revelation 2:17).  For the Holy Spirit and Promise of the Father becomes an infinitely creative and un-limiting force, one that connects us with a whole communion of saints, a Kingdom, and a living Way to go forward and to fulfill our true nature.  This is the nature of the life in Christ, which we secure through the communion He has given us, the Eucharist ("thanks" in Greek), and our faith -- for all of which we must be truly thankful, if we can but carry the cross to realize that any worldly end is just the start of a new beginning for us as well.  We live in this time of fulfillment.  We must remember that all good things take time; this living way is not a magic trick, but one which unfolds.  Let us continue to find its meanings and new starts -- and not to fear even its "ends."