Today we joyfully celebrate the Feast of the Ascension. I sometimes fear that we tend to miss its joyousness because it marks the end of the Paschal season, the end of proclaiming "Christ is Risen," the end of singing "Shine, O New Jerusalem."

But I think we can almost dare to call, and rejoice in, Ascension as the Feast of our Salvation. Christ, having united the Divine and human natures, now lifts our human nature up to heaven, carving a pathway for our union with God.

A verse in the Vespers service for Ascension meditates on this in some detail:

The nature of Adam, 
which had descended to the nethermost parts of the earth,
Thou didst renew in Thyself, O God,
and today Thou didst take it up above every Principality and Power,
for loving it, Thou didst seat it with Thyself;
and having compassion on it, Thou didst unite it with Thyself;
and united with it, Thou didst suffer with it;
and Thou Who art passionless hast glorified it with Thyself. 
But the Bodiless Powers were asking: 
“Who is this Man of beauty?
Not man only, but both God and man,
the two natures together made manifest.”
And so exultant Angels, flying about the Disciples in shining robes,
cried out: “O Men of Galilee, 
He Who is gone from you,
this Jesus, both Man and God,
will come again as God and Man, the Judge of the living and the dead,
granting the faithful forgiveness of sins and His great mercy!”