NOTES for Act 1:1-11

How different the behavior of Christ's disciples is before His death and after it! When Jesus told them about His coming death and that He was going to the Father, they were grieved (see John 14:28). Now, witnessing His Ascension, they rejoice instead, even though the Teacher is visibly leaving them: "And while He blessed them, He began to depart from them and be carried up into heaven. They worshiped Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy." Even though Pentecost had not yet come, the apostles had already lived through an event that turned their whole life upside down. The death and Resurrection of their Teacher changed the heart of each one of them.

In addition, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, something else happened during the Ascension (see Acts 1:10-11). Two men in white garments appeared to the apostles and announced the Second Coming of the Lord. How amazing that, without waiting, as it were, for the descent of the Spirit who "will teach you all things and remind you of everything" (John 14:26), the Lord Himself after the Resurrection appeared to the disciples "for forty days" and spoke about the Kingdom of God, and now these two men remind them of Jesus' return. Maybe this is the most important thing in the feast of the Ascension: that we are witnesses to the promise of His Second Coming, rejoicing that He goes to the Father.

The Savior's earthly ministry ends with His ascension. To an outside observer it may appear that He is simply leaving, disappearing into the shining cloud of God's presence. Leaving for some distant place where He can no longer be seen. Yet He is going where the King of that Kingdom must be, the Kingdom destined very soon to enter the world and begin its victorious procession.

On the day of His ascension, Jesus does precisely what His apostles ask Him about: He begins to build the Kingdom. To create it. True, His disciples still understand nothing as before: they still hope that the Kingdom will be earthly, that now at last it will become visible to everyone, and that their Teacher will finally be recognized as the Messiah, the King of this Kingdom. They are still waiting for miracles from this world.

Jesus, however, explains nothing to them. He only says to them: do not hurry. The times and seasons connected with the establishment of the Kingdom are not your concern. This is not a human matter at all; all times are in the Father's authority. But you, Jesus says to the disciples, wait for your hour. Wait for the Holy Spirit. Wait until God's breath breaks into your life and transforms it. Then you will understand everything. The meaning of Jesus' words is clear: until you become part of the spiritual process that began with the Savior's appearance in the world, you will not see the Kingdom. And even Him, the King of this Kingdom, you will not truly see without sharing in God's breath.

In essence, He is not going away at all. He is simply setting out for the place where a king must be when decisive events begin in his kingdom: to the throne, to the throne room, just as at a decisive moment a captain goes to the bridge or an army commander to his command post.

Before, while communicating with the apostles, He remained all the time at the very border of the Kingdom, the border that separates it from the world not yet transformed. Now He is moving from the border of the Kingdom into its depths. This, of course, does not mean that His apostles will no longer see Him. They only need to share themselves in the fullness of the Kingdom's life on the day of Pentecost. But that still lies ahead of them. For now they sit and look at the sky, until at last God's messengers who appeared from there remind them that their place is not here, but in Jerusalem, where they were commanded to be.

The Ascension is one of the most mysterious events described in the Book of Acts. On the one hand are the apostles, expecting that now, at last, their Teacher will reveal His power to the world and become the Messiah many wanted Him to be, not excluding the apostles themselves. On the other is Jesus' departure, strange at first glance, into some unknown spiritual distance, although until then He had been so close and had shown no intention of going away.

Yet nothing unexpected is really happening: the Kingdom is taking shape in its own course. After all, the Kingdom was not simply to enter the world, as it had entered with Jesus; it had to unfold within the world. And the process of its unfolding also involved what, in human language, we might call a deepening of the Kingdom.

Previously, the whole Kingdom had been contained in the risen Jesus Himself and around Him; now it had to expand to encompass the whole world. Jesus does not disappear anywhere. The cloud mentioned by the Evangelist is not a thundercloud, but the radiant presence of God that accompanied both the Jewish people throughout their history and the Savior Himself at the most important moments of His earthly ministry.

Jesus simply withdraws into the depths of the Kingdom, which now suddenly becomes infinitely vast. From the periphery where the apostles remain, the center where the risen Jesus dwells can no longer be seen, nor can Jesus Himself. Even before, He had been visible not because the apostles were close to the Kingdom's center, but because its depth had not yet become apparent to them as it now had.

It would still be possible to see the risen Christ, but only by being within the Kingdom oneself. For the apostles, this still lay ahead: they would enter the Kingdom on the day of Pentecost, and then no questions would remain. They would no longer expect the Messiah's outward triumph that they still expected even now, on the day of the Ascension.

From within the Kingdom, the risen Christ will be seen as clearly and distinctly as the disciples saw Him in the first days after the Resurrection—as Paul later saw Him on the road to Damascus, and as many other Christians later saw Him. He becomes invisible to the world, but He does not abandon His Kingdom or His faithful. And at the end of time, when the Kingdom unfolds in all its fullness, transfiguring the world, He will again become visible to everyone. Like lightning, which, in His own words, it will be impossible not to notice.

The Catechetical Homily of our father among the saints John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, for the holy and radiant day of the glorious and saving Resurrection of Christ our God

Let everyone who is devout and loves God enjoy this beautiful and radiant feast; let every wise servant enter rejoicing into the joy of his Lord; let everyone who has labored in fasting receive the denarius today. Let everyone who has worked from the first hour now receive his just due; let everyone who has come after the third hour celebrate with thanksgiving; let everyone who has arrived after the sixth hour doubt nothing, for he loses nothing; if anyone has been late even until the ninth hour, let him draw near without hesitation; if anyone has arrived only at the eleventh hour, let him not fear because of his delay. For the eagerly generous Master (literally, generous out of ambition) receives the last as the first; He gives rest to the one [who came at] the eleventh hour as to the one who labored from the first; He has mercy on the last and cares for the first; He gives to the one and bestows gifts on the other. He accepts deeds and welcomes intentions; He honors actions and approves aspirations.

Therefore, all of you, enter into the joy of our Lord; first and second, receive your reward; rich and poor, rejoice together; the self-restrained and the negligent, honor this day; those who have fasted and those who have not, rejoice today. The table is abundantly laden—enjoy it, all of you. The calf is fattened—let no one go away hungry. Let all enjoy the banquet of faith; let all partake of the riches of goodness. Let no one lament his poverty, for the Kingdom belonging to all has appeared; let no one mourn his transgressions, for forgiveness has shone forth from the tomb; let no one fear death, for the Savior's death has set us free: He whom death held captive has extinguished it.

He who descended into Hades plundered it (literally, stripped the armor from a defeated enemy); He filled it with bitterness when it tasted His flesh. Isaiah, foreseeing this, cried out: 'Hades was embittered (filled with bitterness) at Your coming' (Isa. 14:9, according to the Septuagint; the Russian Synodal translation reads: 'Hades below was stirred up for you'). It was embittered, for it collapsed; embittered, for it was put to shame (literally, mocked); embittered, for it was put to death; embittered, for it was overthrown; embittered, for it was bound. It received a body and was encompassed by God; it received earth and encountered Heaven; it received what was visible and fell under the power of the Invisible.

Death, where is your sting? Hades, where is your victory? Christ is risen, and you are cast down; Christ is risen, and the demons have fallen; Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice; Christ is risen, and life reigns (literally, dwells in its own domain); Christ is risen, and not one dead person remains in the tombs, for Christ, rising from the dead, has become the firstborn of those who have died. To Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

How often does it happen that we, like the "men of Galilee," simply stand and look? We are under an impression: perhaps from a meeting with God, or perhaps with some person, or from something else... Something has struck us to the depth of the soul, and we want to preserve this feeling in ourselves a little longer. As one well-known literary character said, "Stay, moment, you are beautiful!" It appears to us that here, where this meeting happened, here is where we ought to be - because precisely here I can meet God!

But God does not want us to stand in one place, keeping watch for His next appearance. To the disciples "stuck" at the place of His Ascension, the Lord sends angels to explain: He sees them and is waiting in an entirely different place. They need to go farther, they need to fulfill His commission, they need to share what He gives in this encounter, without trying to keep everything for themselves.

In our relationship with God the principle is very true: "When you think you are standing still, you are falling." He wants movement from us - movement toward where He Himself calls us, toward where His Spirit leads us, without regret for the place of encounter left behind, but "with great joy" (see Luke 24:52).

The apostles find themselves in a state of waiting: they no longer see the risen Lord in the flesh, yet they do not yet live by His presence as it will be revealed to them in the experience of Pentecost, when they “receive power” from the Holy Spirit. Their state is in many ways like ours. We ourselves have never seen the Lord Jesus “according to the flesh,” and as for the Spirit, we often live by anything at all except His breath within us.

What matters greatly for us here is how the apostles lived through those ten days. Reading these lines again and again, we find in them the path we should follow if we, too, desire the “acquisition of the Holy Spirit” promised to everyone who believes in Jesus. Above all, it is a path of diligent prayer and of communal love for one another; and also — this is the principle by which Matthias and Barsabbas are chosen — a living remembrance of Christ's earthly life, His death, and His Resurrection.

Today's reading tells us about the event that preceded Pentecost: the Ascension (vv. 4-12). At first glance it seems more sad than joyful, since it is about the disciples' parting from the Teacher, which of course did not inspire them at all. It would seem that everything Jesus had promised had taken place: He had risen from the dead, as He had foretold, and the apostles had barely begun to get used to communion with Him in this new condition of His. After all, forty days of constant meetings with the Risen One is no small length of time, especially given the spiritual intensity of those forty days (vv. 1-3). And now He suddenly leaves again - where? why?

The apostles' first thought was, of course, of the Kingdom: had the day finally come when the Kingdom would become an unmistakable reality for everyone, powerfully invading the world and obvious to each person? For now, as it appeared to them, there really was nothing left to wait for; everything that had to happen had happened, especially since the Teacher Himself had spoken only of His resurrection, connecting the triumph of the Kingdom precisely with it. It is no surprise that the apostles ask Jesus about the Kingdom: perhaps now, at last, the time has come (v. 6)? Perhaps the Teacher is leaving so that He may soon return as the triumphant King of the messianic Kingdom? And does He command them to return to Jerusalem (v. 7) so that they may prepare a solemn welcome for Him there?

It is no surprise that, even after Jesus disappeared in the shining cloud of God's glory (v. 9), the apostles still kept standing in the same place, perhaps expecting that the Teacher would soon appear again. Only the words of God's messengers, who confirmed Jesus' own instruction about the need to go to Jerusalem, made them move from the spot (vv. 10-12). The triumph of the Kingdom, which had seemed so near, certain, and comprehensible only recently, again became strange, incomprehensible, and, it already seemed, not even so near. All that remained was to return to Jerusalem, as the Teacher had commanded, and wait for what had been promised.