Can you imagine what it was like to be with the Apostles as Our Lord ascended into heaven? Just the fact that He rose from the dead was amazing enough, but then He leaves them by lifting off the ground and floating upwards until He disappeared behind a cloud. It was so stunning to His Apostles that they kept looking into the sky until a couple angels told them to stop!
Our Lord did not need to enter into Heaven in this way. He could have just disappeared from their sight. He could have staged a special effects show that would make any movie producer envious. But Jesus ascending into Heaven as He did shows us that He opened the gates of Heaven to us, that He took His place in the Heavenly kingdom, and that we will join Him body and soul.
We know that through sin, the gates of Heaven were closed to us. This is symbolized by the angels guarding the entrance to the Garden of Eden. By Our Lord’s death and resurrection, those gates are now open again! We no longer need to be locked out due to sin! When He ascended into Heaven, He threw open the gates and led in the righteous who were awaiting Him.
Once He entered into Heaven, He took His place at the right hand of the Father, as we profess in the Nicene Creed every Sunday. Like an earthly king going to his throne for the first time after coronation, Jesus took His place as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Now, if we wish to enter into His Kingdom, we have to follow Him.
If we do follow Him and His teachings, we will enter into Heaven after our deaths most likely, unless He returns during our lifetimes. When we do, we will be separated from our bodies until the final judgment, then we’ll be reunited with our bodies for all eternity. These bodies we inhabit now will be part of us for the entirety of eternity.
This last point is one we probably need to be reminded more than the rest. Too many people think of the body as a “meat puppet” that contains our souls, the “real us”. However, our bodies are important. We are both physical and spiritual. Our bodies and souls are united to make up the totality of who we are.
We respect the body of somebody who has died as a sign of our respect for that person. This is why burial is so important, and why scattering of ashes (or other desecration of the body) is condemned. This is why we bury those who have died in beautifully decorated cemeteries and care for their graves.
Our Lord is on His throne in the Kingdom of Heaven. One day, may we stand before Him!
