Synaxarion for the Ascension

On Thursday of the sixth week of Pascha we celebrate the ascension of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ.

Verses
Thou didst sit at the right hand of the Father, O Word,
Who didst show veritable Faith to the disciples.

Since, while He wast still with the disciples, before His suffering, the Lord promised them that the most Holy Spirit would come, saying: “It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you” and again, “When He is come, He will guide you to all truth”. For this reason, after His resurrection from the dead, Christ appeared to them over the course of forty days, not constantly, but at intervals: He ate and drank with them, and thereby established the resurrection beyond doubt. Finally, having related to them much concerning the kingdom of heaven, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but, remaining there, to await the coming of the most Holy Spirit, since they had to be baptized therewith; for they had originally been baptized by John only with water. (Although, according to a much later account by Epiphanius of Cyprus, John the Theologian baptized the Theotokos, and Peter baptized the rest of the apostles.) Christ also commanded them to remain in Jerusalem so that the preaching of the Gospel might be established there—lest if they dispersed to various places, their veracity might be more easily doubted; moreover, they, like soldiers, had to be armed with the weaponry of the Spirit, and thus proceed to do battle against the enemies of Christ. When the time came for His ascension, Christ took them up the Mount of Olives (so called because olive trees grew thickly on its slopes), and conversing with them concerning their preaching of Him to the ends of the earth, and also concerning the endlessness of His coming kingdom, and noting that the disciples wanted to ask Him about what did not concern them, He sent angels to them, and to His all-pure Mother, who was also there, to point out His ascension into the heavens. Then, as they watched, He wast taken up from among them on a cloud which bore Him aloft. Then, accompanied by angels who commanded others to lift up the gates of heaven, and were amazed at the blood-red color of His flesh, He sat at the right hand of the Father, deifying the flesh; and—I dare to say—He brought it into unity with the Godhead; for through it we have been freed from the ancient curse, which has been annulled. The angels who stood before the apostles in human guise, said: “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye in awe, looking toward the sky? He Whom ye have seen in the flesh -- Jesus God -- will come again in the same form, that is, in the flesh; yet not as before, meekly and in disrepute, but with great glory, and accompanied by angels, as ye see Him now.” Then the apostles, lowering their gaze, returned from the Mount of Olives, and remained close to Jerusalem, at a distance of 2040 paces. This was the length of a Sabbath’s journey, since Moses prescribed in the Law that one should walk only just such a distance on the Sabbath. Inasmuch as the Tabernacle of the Witness stood just so many paces from the camp of the Jews, and, if anyone wanted to go thither to worship, it was permitted to walk just such a distance, and no farther, which is why this was called a Sabbath’s journey. There are those who for this reason think that the ascension of Christ also took place on the Sabbath, but this is not deserving of credence. The apostles, returning, went up into the upper room, in which they were staying with the myrrh-bearing women and the Mother of the Word, and awaiting the promised descent of the most Holy Spirit, they exercised themselves in fasting, prayer and supplication. O Christ our God, Who didst ascend in glory, have mercy on us. Amen.

Translated from the Church Slavonic by Monk Joseph (Isaac) Lambertsen. Copyright Lambertsen Foundation. All rights reserved.