Essays on Eastern Orthodoxy
The Glory of Humanity, or "Daddy! Did I Do Okay?"
Essay on the Feast of Ascension
June 9, 2005
The Easter season is nearing an end in the Orthodox Church. Wednesday night was the Feast of the Ascension, which occurred, and is celebrated, forty days after the Resurrection. Whether by plan or coincidence, the diocese Parish Life Conference begins tomorrow here in Sioux City, so Bishop BASIL and some other priests were in town for the conference and all were at St. Thomas to celebrate Divine Liturgy.
The homily was given by Bishop BASIL and it was one of the best sermons I have heard in years. He said that while the specific event celebrated on this day is the Ascension of Jesus Christ into heaven, the real meaning of the Ascension is the exultation of humanity. “For the first time from eternity, a human person with human flesh and bone entered into heaven when Jesus Christ ascended into heaven.” A little later he said “Heaven is populated with bodiless powers who were created to do God's bidding and worship God around the throne, and now, ever since the Ascension, the Word of God, whom we know as Jesus Christ, with a real human body, sits upon that throne and is worshiped.”
During the sermon he wandered back to the large festal icon of the Ascension that is on the wall of the nave at St. Thomas. He pointed out how in the icon the apostles are craning their necks upward as Jesus ascends into heaven in glory. He then asked us to imagine the same scene from the perspective of heaven. In heaven, on that day, the angels, or “bodiless powers” as they are often called in the liturgy, were craning their necks (“If they have them,” he added) looking down at this human person with a human body who was entering into heaven to rule over all the universe. This event, that was absolutely amazing to the apostles (a human ascending into heaven!), was no less amazing to the heavenly bodiless powers (a human rising from earth!).
God created the heavens and the earth with a command. That's the nature of the creative command of God, after all. He created stars and planets and oceans and animals with a command, but when he created man, the Word of God (the Second Person of the Trinity) reached down, picked up, and shaped mud with his hands. “We are special. God got dirt beneath his finger nails when he created us.” And of course the Word of God took on that same flesh through the miracle of the incarnation in Mary's womb. So when Jesus ascended into heaven and sat on the throne, it had implications for all of humanity. This Feast is, in a very profound sense, our Feast and our glorification.
The homily put this Divine Liturgy into a very different context for me. Byzantine worship is full of pomp and circumstance. Add a Bishop and a couple of hieromonks (monks who are also priests) and the pomp and circumstance is multiplied. There were additional vestments I have not seen before as well as an extra procession and a number of extra activities all involving the Bishop. After the sermon, as the pomp and circumstance continued, it occurred to me that the Divine Liturgy in general, while certainly about offering our prayer to God, is all about human exaltation. In Protestantism exalting humans is frowned upon; we should rather be in the business of exalting God. After BASIL's sermon I realized that Orthodoxy does not bifurcate the two. We exalt God by exalting God himself, but we also exalt God by exalting humans. This is the correct and necessary thing to do for two reasons. First, as was said in the sermon, God made a special effort to create humans. By exalting humans we honor the order of God's creation. Second, since God himself took on human flesh in Jesus Christ, and since this same Jesus Christ now rules creation from heaven, our honor of God would be incomplete if we did not honor humans. The reality of the incarnation implies that honoring humans is important. Furthermore, church history (particularly the history of the Orthodox East) indicates that when the proper honor of creation, humans included, is not given, commitment to the doctrine of the incarnation begins to wane.
Steve Robinson, one of the hosts of the Phoenix radio program Our Life in Christ, recently wrote in his blog about attending commencement services at Texas Tech University. He has a picture of the faculty regaled in their academic robes and hats and has entitled the picture “The Priests and Bishops of Our Culture.” He observes, “Modern protestantism [sic] may have dumped the priesthood and all of its glory in the Church but it still holds fast to it in the arena that ‘really counts’: Reason and logic, learning and scholasticism.”
So the Orthodox and Catholics give great visible honor to their priests and bishops and the American academia does the same. Why don't the Protestants? Protestant sensibility is that such honor is at least improper and more likely idolatrous. By offering such honor we place the priesthood in a conceptual place that undermines the doctrine of Jesus Christ as the only mediator between humans and God. In fact Protestants are so concerned about this that they have rejected the priesthood completely, at least in name.
But from an Orthodox perspective, these concerns about idolatry are offset by the doctrine of the incarnation and its implications. One has to remember that we are the Body of Christ because of the incarnation, Christ's Ascension into heaven and the descent of the Holy Spirit to indwell us forever ten days later at Pentecost. Furthermore, it must be emphasized clearly that this is not just some vague, figurative idea. We are quite literally, the Body of Christ, and when we honor the Body, we honor the Head.
All of this is prefigured in the Old Testament where a great deal of the Pentateuch focuses on the priesthood. There are directives about the sort of clothes they wear and what they do. The details of the portable tabernacle, and later, the permanent temple are provided in great detail. Not only does scripture require that the temple be beautiful, what it requires is expensive. The message is clear: when it comes to representing God's glory, God does not want us to skimp. The worship requirements and costs are extravagant and God never apologizes for that.
Protestantism turns to the book of Hebrews in order to justify its minimalist approach to worship. Now that the incarnation has happened and the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, as well as the coming of the Holy Spirit, is in the past, our temple is spiritual, not physical. We worship at “the temple not made with hands.” A study of church history will demonstrate that this is a relatively recent innovation (in the last 600 years). Attempts to pursue this sort of minimalism also occurred on different occasions prior to the precursors of the Reformation in Europe, but each of those attempts were declared heresy and eventually died out. The difference between those previous minimalist movements and Protestantism is that by the time Protestantism developed, the West had been cut off from the Christian East, so there was no one to call an ecumenical council to deal with the Protestant innovations (or “minimalizations” in this case).
Orthodoxy would wholeheartedly agree with the Protestants that we now worship at the temple not made with hands; the difference is that the Orthodox do not suffer from the Western dualism inherent within Protestantism. Protestant dualism creates a situation where Protestants have to either worship at the temple not made with hands or worship in a human temple reminiscent of the Old Testament temple. Within this either/or context, choosing the man-made worship space is tantamount to idolatry because it is a rejection of the heavenly temple not made with hands. But Orthodoxy does not suffer from the Aristotelian dualism inherent in Protestantism. Because of their unified view of reality they, like the Old Testament people of God, see no conflict between a beautiful earthly temple with ornate vestments and complex liturgical actions and the heavenly worship which it represents.
This is what Bishop BASIL was referring to when he spoke of the Ascension being the exultation of humanity. In the God-man Jesus Christ there is now an unbreakable link between heaven and earth, between the spiritual and the physical, the church and the heavenly temple not made with hands. In other words, all this pomp and circumstance is real and not just play acting. Although, since I have said there is an unbreakable link between heaven and earth, I believe that a case should be made for an unbreakable link between the real and play acting.
While it is true that there is an unbreakable link between heaven and earth, it would be foolish to think that because of this link we can grasp everything that goes on in heaven. Paul's vision of heaven (2 Cor. 12) and John's apocalyptic vision (the book of Revelation) demonstrate that we are incapable of fully comprehending what goes on in heaven in our current earthly state. There is therefore an element of play acting in all we do related to God. The liturgy with all its pomp and circumstance is but a rough approximation of what happens in heaven. Although the form of Old Testament worship was prescribed by God, since no one has ever seen the heavenly worship in its fullness, we can never be absolutely certain that we got it exactly right. As a result there is always an element of imagination and creativity in our fulfilling of the command to worship God. Of course, imagination and creativity is at the heart of play acting.
The presiding presbyter at this Divine Liturgy was Fr. Damascene from the St. Herman Monastery in California. (He was scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the Parish Life Conference, and this is no doubt why he was invited to preside.) Fr. Damascene has a boyish face and a childlike look of wonder in his eyes which I found quite appealing. When the Bishop is present, the presiding priest comes out of the Royal Doors and bows to the Bishop after he does anything significant. When Fr. Damascene did this he hurried (almost ran) out of the doors and bowed quickly. Because of this and his childlike countenance I couldn't help but think of a small child running up to their parent for approval with that “Did I do okay?” look in their eye. I mean no disrespect to Fr. Damascene in making this comparison; in fact I think there is a profound truth in that comparison. As we go about our tasks, whether in worship or in the world, there is indeed this need to stay connected to our heavenly Father and Master. We do need to be always returning to him, interrupting him, and asking, “Daddy, did I do okay? Did I do okay?” We need to be regularly returning to make sure that he is paying attention and watching us, and that we are still connected. (Of course, our heavenly Father never ignores us, as our human parents sometimes do, but this constant returning to the Father, as if to get His attention, is important for our sense of connection and communion with God. Since we are prone to wander off, it is time well spent when we return to God in order to tug on his robes, so to speak.)
It was not only Fr. Damascene, but all the priests and deacons that went through this routine. Every time a deacon came out of the sanctuary to lead in prayer, he would acknowledge the Bishop with a bow. (“Did I do okay? Did I do okay?”) When the reader came down from the choir loft to read the Epistle, he bowed before the Bishop and the Bishop gave him a blessing. (“Did I do okay? Did I do okay?”) When the deacon read the Gospel he also received a blessing from the Bishop, and instead of reading the Gospel from the Royal Doors, he read it standing beside the Bishop. (“Did I do okay? Did I do okay?”), and at the passing of the peace, instead of the presiding priest saying “peace be with you” from the Royal Doors, the Bishop offered the peace to the congregation and the whole congregation recognized and blessed the Bishop in return. (“Did we do okay? Did we do okay?”)
All of this bowing to the Bishop (a mere human, after all!) could easily upset my Protestant sensibilities. But in the context of the Bishop BASIL's sermon, I was very much aware of the unbroken connection between heaven and earth. Jesus Christ's ascension meant that humanity was exalted. By bowing to the Bishop, along with all the other liturgical acts involved in Divine Liturgy, we were doing precisely that, exalting humanity. But yet we were not exalting the Bishop just because he was an upstanding guy and a darn good preacher to boot; rather we were exalting the Body of Christ, and in so doing, exalting the Head as well. And when you're play acting at something as fantastic as heavenly worship, it's a very good thing to frequently return to the Heavenly Father and ask, “Did I do okay? Did I do okay?”
Oftentimes I just want to sit down, sit back, and listen during Orthodox worship. The Orthodox faithful have this thing about standing up through most of their services. And you have to pay attention because along with standing up, there's a lot of bowing the head, crossing oneself, acknowledging the priest, etc., etc. Some days it gets kind of tedious. But after the homily on the evening of the Ascension, I found myself standing a little straighter, saying all the right things at all the right places and with a bit more precision, and in general, trying to do everything just as I was supposed to. The homily set forth in a most marvelous manner the reality that when I worship here in Sioux City, I am also worshiping in heaven. Since I am in heaven, I was motivated to stand straight and say all the right things. Even though I wasn't leading worship, I was also asking, “Did I do okay? Did I do okay?”
Possibly the most common phrase in Orthodox worship is “Lord, have mercy.” “Lord, have mercy!” is a formal term, but it has much the same meaning as “Did I do okay? Did I do okay?” When Christians say “Lord, have mercy,” they are approaching God, not so much for God's forgiveness, but rather seeking God's involvement and acceptance of what's happening. In this very real “play acting” that we call worship, it is the equivalent of the child running from the sandbox to the parent, saying, “Daddy, did I do okay? Did I do okay?” When the celebrants bow to the Bishop, it is this same sensibility at work. My Protestant visage may emerge at this point and frown disapprovingly, but I suspect that our Heavenly Father smiles and says, “You're doing great.”
Copyright © 2006 James E. Nelson (Just Another Jim). All Rights Reserved.
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