Saint Tikhon’s Monastery
South Canaan, PA
May 29, 2023
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Joyous feast of the Ascension of Christ!
In today’s Gospel, the Lord tell us, his disciples: “I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in me. But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave me commandment, so I do. Arise, let us go from here.”
The time for talk, the Lord says, is drawing to a close; the time for action draws near. Now it is time for him to do as the Father commanded him. He has spoken to the world, he has spoken to us, but now he has said enough.
With these words, the Lord portends the end of his earthly ministry and declares that he is ready to accomplish the fullness of the Father’s will for our salvation: his Passion, Rising, and Ascension into heaven to sit at the Father’s right hand.
But what do these words mean to us, gathered together at a Pennsylvania pilgrimage two thousand years later?
After all, the Lord’s saving dispensation is long since accomplished; he disappeared beyond the clouds and stars many years ago, and we still await his return. His Cross lies in fragments, scattered throughout the world as a relic of his Passion; his Rising, which took place without any direct witness all those centuries ago, remains ineffable.
Even liturgically speaking, his Ascension has already happened; he has already gone up from us. Why does he say, “I will no longer talk much with you”? The forty days of his abiding have already come to an end.
Perhaps one answer to this mystery—for the words of the Lord are always pregnant with mystery and always giving birth to a deeper faith and deeper understanding, for those who are willing to receive them—perhaps one answer to this mystery is found in those words: “Arise, let us go hence.”
The Lord does not say, “Now I will arise, and go hence.”
He speaks to us, his disciples, and with an imperative—“Arise”—and an exhortation—“Let us go hence.”
Perhaps this time for action, this time when the Lord accomplishes all, refers not merely to his saving Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension. Perhaps it also refers to the mystery which lies beyond these mysteries, to the feast which crowns these light-bearing feasts: the Coming of the Spirit.
When the Spirit comes, Christ will no longer speak, and we will no longer question him: rather the Spirit will speak with boldness and power in those who are faithful.
The ruler of the world is coming, but he has nothing in Christ, and nothing in those who are in Christ. Those who are anointed by the Spirit and signed with the Name of Christ are impervious to the mark of beast.
And when the Spirit comes to abide in the faithful, this is the fulfillment of the saving dispensation: the divine and messianic powers which belong to Christ by nature from all eternity are now shared out among his disciples and apostles, so that they can bring his salvation from Judea and Galilee of the Gentiles even to the ends of the earth.
This brings us back to those words: “Arise, let us go hence.”
Christ has acted to save the world by his Pascha; now it is time for the Lord to act in his saints. Now we are drawing towards Pentecost, the summer of the Spirit, the anticipation of eternity, the eschaton enacted.
Christ has accomplished his saving work; soon it will be time for us to arise and go hence and carry forward that saving work, following in the footsteps of the fishermen, the paths of the disciples, the doctrine of the fathers, the example of the ascetics, the witness of the martyrs.
The Lord bids us to arise and go hence and preach his Gospel to the world. His ministry is over; his preaching is done; his Passion is perfected. Now it is time for us to minister, to preach, to suffer for the Gospel, filling up what is lacking in Christ’s sufferings, in the words of the apostle.
As we approach Pentecost and leave behind the Fifty Days, the season of sanctity is upon us. What was begun during Lent and Pascha is now being brought to its completion. Many Orthodox Christians live from Pascha to Pascha, but truly Pascha is a beginning, not an end: it always points us forward, toward Pentecost, toward the spread of the Gospel throughout the world, toward the sanctification of Christians, the making of saints, throughout space and time.
And speaking of the saints throughout space and time brings us back to this place, St. Tikhon’s Monastery, today: back to our Pennsylvania pilgrimage.
This monastery was founded by the great St. Tikhon of Moscow, who constantly heeded the Lord’s command to arise and go hence. From the Russian Empire to America, to the Patriarchal throne, to unswerving witness to Christ in the face of the Bolshevik terror, St. Tikhon was always following the Lord, always ascending higher in the Spirit, soaring with the wings of sanctity toward the very throne of God where he now reigns beside his Lord.
Much the same could be said of St. Alexis Toth, whose holy relics repose here to this day. He arose and went hence from the Unia into the fullness of the Orthodox faith and the fullness of the communion of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. As his Lord, before his Passion and Ascension, once exhorted his disciple to arise and go hence, so did St. Alexis exhort so many of his fellow children of Rus, Galicians and Carpatho-Rusyns, to arise and follow him into holy Orthodoxy.
As time once failed St. Paul when he wrote to the Hebrews, time now fails us to tell of St. Nikolai Velimirovic and the other saints and luminaries who have walked these grounds, who have appeared in this land.
Their example lies before us; the words of the Lord call us onward; the Spirit is coming, the Spirit of truth, to lead us into the fullness of truth, to anoint our lips with power, to abide in us and cleanse us and lead us to salvation and to sanctity.
Arise, let us go hence, and carry forward the Gospel of the Lord in our own place and time. Let this pilgrimage be not an end, but a beginning. May a new season of sanctity flourish in our Church in the American land, and may we all bravely and humbly heed the Lord’s words, ascending through virtue and struggle and repentance into those heavenly high places where he already awaits us with his saints.
And to him, the Ascended Lord, belongs all glory, honor, and adoration, together with his Father and the All-holy Paraclete, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.
Joyous feast! S prazdnikom!