In assumptionem domini

Of our father among the saints John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, on the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. This present festival is, as it seems, a divine one, proclaiming the Lord's victory over death; and we have come to this, the crown of all feasts. For now the achievement of the entire economy for us has reached its end; and the present time has come, bearing the tokens of the victory celebration. For now the Lord has led up into heaven "the firstfruits of our bodies." Therefore we celebrate the Lord's return, by which he transferred our nature to the heavens. For the God who dwelt therein raised up his own temple, and he who crossed the ethereal sea gathered to himself his own garment, ever filling all things by his divine nature, but by his incarnate economy first going under the earth, and later, after his victory over death, filling the heavenly dwelling-place with his own body. "Who will proclaim the mighty deeds of the Lord, who will make all his praises heard?" What speech could set forth the magnitude of such an economy? What tongue could proclaim the infinite wealth of the Lord's ineffable munificence?

For the one whom sin cast out of the life of paradise, divine grace led up into heaven. The gatekeepers of death cried out, beholding the strange descent of him who visited them unexpectedly: "Who is this king of glory?" The supercelestial powers also uttered this cry, astounded at the strange sight of him who had ascended with a body. "Lift up your gates, O rulers," he says, "and be raised up, eternal gates, and the king of glory shall enter." For he who transferred our kindred nature along with himself led up the human nature. The ascent of him who appeared in human form is extraordinary; for divine also was the descent of him who was born unnaturally from a virgin. The visible is man, but the intelligible is God. He has made our nature a veil for the invisible divinity; "For," he says, "no one has ever seen God. The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has explained." He came to us bearing the unaltered image of the Father's nature; he appeared characterizing the indescribable divinity of the Father's hypostasis. For he was a form resembling the one who begot him; "He who exists in the form of God," he says, "took the form of a servant." The form of a servant does not falsify our nature. Therefore the divinity of the genuine offspring also verifies the likeness to the Father. So this one, having worked out salvation for our nature through his own incarnation, has now fulfilled the purpose of the economy.

Now the achievement of his beneficence toward us has been accomplished, and he who was concealed by a bodily cloud and wrapped the human garment around himself as a veil of his own divinity has taken up with the divinity that which is akin to our nature. Now he who appeared earthly has become heavenly again, not circumscribed in place according to the boundlessness of the divinity, but filling all things by his divine nature, while having appeared as a man by economy. "For in form," it says, "found as a man," he concealed the divinity with a human covering. This covering, then, he led up into the heavens, he who established the whole creation contrary to nature. I cannot describe the manner of his generation before the ages; my tongue cannot reach to interpret even his birth from the virgin. The things seen are human, but the things believed are divine. "Who is this," it says, "the king of glory?" These things the supramundane powers cried out. Strange is the one who set out; for he who ascended is contrary to nature; for he was seen as light-like, and the sight of his body also. For it received the radiances of the divine rays. He led her up into the heavens, he who underwent our nature, in order to make heaven accessible to those on earth. A cloud has been made the vehicle of his human covering; and riding upon that, he transferred his own garment to heaven. Just as, then, the conception of his birth from the virgin was contrary to nature, so too the miracle of his ascent to the heavens is extraordinary. For how is it possible for a human body to fly over the heavenly vaults? But what nature did not admit, grace has bestowed.

He has gone up," and the servant not into heaven, but "as if into heaven." For there is a great distance between the servant's existence, which was by grace, and the Lord's divine authority. For the marvelous Elijah, the charioteer of the fiery chariot, did not fly beyond the heavenly vaults; but he who transferred our nature to the heavens has made heaven accessible to men. Now the reconciliations with the heavenly king have reached their fulfillment, and he who was united with the Father in divinity, but who arranged salvation for the human nature through his visitation to us, has reconciled the nature once at war with the Father to his own parent. Now he has led up what is of the same race as us, the mediator between each nature. "For there is one God," he says, "and one mediator between God and men." Man in what is seen, God in what is believed. Who will be able to represent in speech this marvelous ascent of the one paradoxically taken up? But what the tongue cannot reach, faith teaches. For he who was concealed by the body brought up the firstfruits of our nature, as if presenting a sheaf from a flourishing crop to the Father.

This saving assumption, then, we now celebrate; this lordly ascent we solemnize, hymning the magnitude of the Master's ineffable gift and proclaiming the success of the economy concerning us, so that we also, shining through our achievements and displaying the fruits of righteousness, may hasten to run up to what is akin to us and reach the royal throne itself, whither he who put on our kindred nature brought it up for us, that we might reign together with the Master and enjoy his gifts, exchanging earth for heaven and preferring the heavenly to the earthly, that we may traffic in heavenly wealth, so that we may obtain the Master's rewards and enjoy the Lord's gifts by the grace of the only-begotten Son of God. Glory to him for ever and ever. Amen.