The Feast of the Epiphany of Our Lord (6 January) and the Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord (on the Fortieth Day of Easter) share some significant similarities and connections, which cause me to think of them together each year on both occasions.
To begin with, although the Epiphany and the Ascension are among the five chief festivals of the Church Year (along with Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost), they often end up getting overlooked and lost in the rhythms and busyness of life. The Epiphany of Our Lord occurs on a Sunday only once every five or six years, and it is almost always after schools have resumed classes following the Christmas break. Consequently, many congregations do not attempt to keep the feast at all, or else they transfer the observance to an adjacent Sunday. Similarly, because the Ascension of Our Lord is always on a Thursday (toward the end of the school year), it typically goes unobserved or transferred to the Seventh Sunday of Easter. It is a blessed opportunity to confess the Gospel of our Lord whenever His Epiphany and His Ascension can be celebrated to the glory of His Name.
A more substantial association between the Epiphany and the Ascension of Our Lord is found in the theological significance of these two Feasts. Though the Epiphany is identified with the Visit of the Magi (in the Western tradition), it really encompasses a number of different occasions and events whereby “the light of the revelation of the glory of God” was manifest in the face of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son. From the Star in the East to the Baptism of Our Lord in the Jordan, to the first Sign of His Glory at the Wedding in Cana, to the Feeding of the Five Thousand, to the Transfiguration (all of which have been associated with the Epiphany at various points), it is as the familiar hymn describes: “God in Man made manifest,” at least to the eyes opened by faith. This is the heart of the Epiphany, that the true and only God is manifest in the Person and work of the Man, Christ Jesus – who is indeed God-in-the-Flesh, in whom God comes to us on earth.
The Feast of the Ascension is really a complement or “book-end” to this Epiphany emphasis, in the sense that, in Christ Jesus, our human nature is elevated and exalted to the right hand of God. The Church and her pastors and theologians over the centuries have confessed this significance in a variety of ways, but it is built right into the rhythm and rhyme of the Church Year with this particular Feast. God became Man, so that we should “become partakers of the divine nature” through fellowship with Him (2 Peter 1:4). Having died with Christ through Holy Baptism in His Name, we are also raised up from death to life in and with Him, seated with Him in the heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6). So it is that “your life is hidden with Christ in God,” and “when Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory” (Colossians 3:3-4). As the Epiphany is the presence of God among men, the Ascension is the presence of Man before God.
Finally, both the Epiphany of Our Lord (the Feast and the Season) and the Ascension of Our Lord (continuing into Pentecost and the Time of the Church) are closely connected to the Office of the Holy Ministry and the ongoing mission of the Church on earth. The divine glory that was manifested in the Person and work of Christ Jesus is revealed to the ends of the earth and the close of the age in the preaching and administration of His Holy Gospel by those men whom He calls, ordains, and sends in His Name and stead. That glory is not evident to the mortal eye, but it is recognized by and received through faith, which is itself obtained in us by the Word and Spirit of Christ Jesus, who still tabernacles with us in the Means of Grace and in the flesh-and-blood ministry of His servants. Likewise, in connection with His Resurrection and Ascension – in all four of the Holy Gospels – the Lord sends His servants to preach the Gospel, to forgive sins, to baptize, and to teach His Word to all the nations (St. Matthew 28:18-20; St. Mark 16:15-20; St. Luke 24:46-53; and St. John 20:19-23). Not only does “all that Jesus began to do and teach” continue in this Ministry of the Gospel (Acts 1:1-2), but so does He also call and bring the sons and daughters of Adam to His God and Father in heaven, as sons and daughters of God in Him.