Today is the Feast of Ascension – the day that Jesus blessed His disciples and was taken up into heaven. It is probably something that we don’t give much thought to, which is unfortunate because the Ascension has a lot of theological connotations that we should probably not ignore. I bumped into one of those connotations this week when I heard someone say: “The Ascension is like Christmas in heaven.”

The meaning behind this is that the miracle that we experienced at Christmas – Jesus Christ, the Son of God, coming to our world in flesh and blood – that miracle is experienced in heaven. Sure, the God the Son was in heaven before He was incarnated into our world at Christmas, but He wasn’t *incarnated* then – He didn’t have a body like ours. His Body is a direct result of His incarnation, so if we celebrate Jesus coming into our world specifically with a body, then you can imagine the celebration that must have occurred in heaven on that day when He returns to heaven, but now with a BODY!

I like to think about that with the Christmas story all turned around. Did angels or maybe human spirits announce His Ascension to seraphim or another angels who were out in the outskirts of heaven tending…I dunno…Golden Retrievers instead of sheep? Do angels give each other presents on this day? Are there a particular brand of Ascension hymns that the angelic choirs love to sing like we love to sing Christmas carols? Does the Father wear an ugly Ascension day sweater on this day? Do the cherubim drink eggnog? None of those are probably the case, but the notion of Christmas in heaven is still important because of what it means.

The Ascension means that Jesus Christ – true God and true man – has been raised from the dead and is now with God the Father. From there He rules over the Church as our King, giving us, His Kingdom, what we need to for our mission here on earth and promising us that one day He will return. On that day, all of us will join with Him and the Angels in another “Christmas” when our incarnated bodies join with the spiritual forces of heaven in the Resurrection. Wow, what a “Christmas” that will be – a final celebration of God’s spiritual and incarnated creations coming together to never again be separated – visible and invisible joined together in perfect harmony.

So like I said, today is Ascension, or perhaps it’s more celebratory to think of it as “Heaven’s Christmas”. Either way, let your imagination run wild and imagine that final celebration when we are reunited with our incarnated Christ and the hosts of heaven in the Resurrection that will have no end.