Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age

Icon of Christ's Ascension, 16th century.  Michurin, Bulgaria (Burgas Art Gallery).  Photo in public domain

 Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them.  When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted.  And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.  Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."  Amen.

- Matthew 28:16-20

Yesterday we read that during Holy Week, as He was being questioned in the temple, while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying, "What do you think about the Christ?  Whose Son is He?"  They said to Him, "The Son of David."  He said to them, "How then does David in the Spirit call Him 'Lord,' saying:  'The LORD said to my Lord, "Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool" '?  If David then calls Him 'Lord,' how is He his Son?"  And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare question Him anymore.

 Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them.  When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted.  And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth."   Today we commemorate the Ascension of Christ.  It is most significant that we understand the role of the Incarnation in this Ascension.  Jesus neither appears to His disciples as a ghost or disembodied spirit; in His post-Resurrection appearances to them, He invites them to touch Him, even to see the marks of the nails of the Crucifixion and also eats with them (see John 20:27, and especially Luke 24:39-43).  These appearances were in a glorified human state.  My study bible comments on Jesus' statement, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth," that Christ declares here that the authority that was His by nature in His divinity is now also possessed by His glorified human nature.  This human nature, it says, has now trampled the final enemy -- death (1 Corinthians 15:20-28).

"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you . . . "  This is known as the Great Commission.  It is the Lord's final commandment give on earth.  My study bible says it is to be lived out in the Church until Christ returns again.  Making disciples, it says, cannot be done in the strength of man, but only in the power of God.  The power of the Resurrection, it adds, is not only for Jesus Himself, but rather is given to all believers for Christian life and mission.

" . . . and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen."  A note here tells us that Christ Himself is present in each believer and in the Church always.  That is, both personally and in the Holy Spirit -- as neither can be separated from the other.  To the end of the age, my study bible says, does not by any means imply that we will be separated from Christ at the end of the world.  He is with us now, and forever, and unto the ages of ages.  Amen.

Jesus' final words at His Ascension are, "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."  These words form a promise, and something that we can count on.  Whatever it is, no matter how isolated or sad or lonely we might feel under certain circumstances, Jesus promises that He is with us always.  How can we take this promise?  First of all Jesus is making this promise at a gathering of His disciples.  The "you" is plural, for He is addressing more than one person.  And by extension, He addresses us all -- for clearly, those standing before Him would not need reassurances that extend to the end of the age.  What we can understand, then, is that this promise is made to each person who would be a disciple of Christ.  It is clearly made in a corporeal sense to the Church, the body of believers, but it is also something that can be understood to apply to each of us.  My study bible's note on this passage states that He is present in each believer and in the Church always,  and that this applies equally to Christ and to the Holy Spirit -- as they cannot be separated.  In John's Gospel, moreover, Jesus promises, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him" (John 14:23).  What that means is that the inseparability of Father, Son, and Spirit guarantee -- they promise -- that each is with us through faith and through faithful adherence to Christ's teachings, through keeping His word.  In effect, Christ teaches that through faith, we are embraced in a loving embrace of Father, Son, and Spirit, even to the end of the age.  We are a part of something.   Not only are we children by adoption, but we are never alone, even as Christ stated He was not alone ("Indeed the hour is coming, yes, has now come, that you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave Me alone. And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me" - John 16:32).  And here we come to what is possibly the most important -- and even incredible -- fact of the Ascension.  That is, that the Incarnation of Christ is not merely about His human life in the flesh as Jesus, but that the Incarnation -- even of Christ in His glorified human body -- extends to this poignant moment which is full of meaning and promise for us.  This is because He ascends also as part of the Incarnation.  He ascends in glory not as a ghost or spirit, but in the glorified form of His humanity, and therefore can draw us with Him where He is.  If this is too awe-filled a concept to consider, then we should think about His promise that He is with us, even to the end of the age.  For without the Incarnation -- and without His ascent which includes His glorified humanity -- none of this would be possible.  It is His life as a human being, including His death on the Cross, and the resurrection appearances in His glorified body, that make it possible that He, the Father, and the Spirit are always with us according to His promise.  This is such as astonishing concept, and such a great mystery, that it is something we cannot afford to take lightly.  We may think about the generations of monastics in the desert and wilderness and elsewhere.  We may think about the saints who have served God even against terrible odds and suffering.  We might think of modern day figures who continue in faith through wars, persecutions, oppression, and all manner of battles against them, and yet come to understand that without this promise such effort and struggle would have died off long ago.  For the fact is that even through its persecutions, the Church thrives and returns.  I read recently an article about a woman named Etty Hillesum.  She was born in Holland, a Jew who was deported by the Nazis to a concentration camp.  And yet in the camp she found the Lord.  She learned to pray.   She learned to speak to God.  A very touching article has appeared recently documenting her idea that even in such horrible circumstances, and surrounded by so much terror and suffering, her choice was to remain a shelter for God.  (The article is titled Giving Shelter to God from Suffering, by Fr. Michael Plekon.)    Imprisoned in an internment camp, she writes about those who seek safety and shelter for things they own, for their fears and their bitterness.  "But," she says, "they forget that no one is in their clutches who is in Your arms."  We live today under the cloud of an epidemic, in which many perhaps might feel alone.  They don't know what their lives will look like or be like after it's over, what job they might return to, what things might be gone.  Many feel isolated.  Our suffering is not comparable to Etty's, but we might nevertheless take comfort from her wisdom and enlightenment.  She learned and rested in Christ's promise, knew it for herself, even among the worst of circumstances.  Let us, also, take heart in her words that kept Christ present -- indeed, Father, Son, and Spirit -- in the place of horrors, even as we know that Christ also descended into hell for us before His Resurrection.  Let us keep in mind all of these promises, and pray for Etty and others whose faith enabled them to ascend with Christ, and do the same for ourselves.  Let us understand the extraordinary living power of this promise these thousands of years later, and cherish it in our own lives for all it may help us to go through and to overcome -- for we are not alone.  In the icon above, we may also notice Christ's mother in the center among the disciples.  She was shelter for Him from start to finish, and remained faithful to her Son throughout her life.  She is representative of all those in the great cloud of witnesses, the saints, who also assure us we are never alone, never without their presence, even as we ask them to join us in our prayers.