By Dominic V. Cassella

With Christmas behind us and as we now proceed through "Ordinary Time," we have the opportunity to contemplate the full, extraordinary mystery of God's descent into human life and our ascent into the divine. The Church Fathers called this descent synkatabasis: literally, "with-down-walking," a lowering of oneself to the level of those beneath you. One of the clearest depictions of this divine condescension is found in the nighttime conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus.

In the Gospel of John, Nicodemus comes to Jesus in the dark of night. Jesus tells him that he must be "born anew" if he wishes to enter into the kingdom of God. To which Nicodemus asks how it is a man can be born again, "can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?" Jesus explains: "No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man." And that this ascent is imaged in the death on the Cross. (John 3:1-15)

In this brief exchange, Baptism and the Cross are juxtaposed. They illustrate both the ascent into Heaven and the taking on of eternal life. The ascending and descending language that Jesus uses here has two bookends: birth and death on the Cross. In these few lines, the full mystery of our own life in Christ is revealed, since life in Christ is a mirror of the life of Christ.

The 13th-century theologian Nicholas Cabasilas taught that the ascending and descending of Christ – which begins with the mystery of His conception and Nativity, continues throughout His life and ministry, and culminates with His death and resurrection – is the very ladder by which we are to become "other christs."

Cabasilas describes this ladder as having three braces. If Jesus Christ is the eternal Word, His descent from Heaven begins with His Incarnation, and this is the top rung of the ladder. His life and ministry are the middle rung, and His death and resurrection are the bottom rung. The three-runged ladder can be paired with the classic Byzantine cross, which itself has three bars: one for Jesus's feet, another for his hands, and the third bearing the inscription "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews."

The ladder of ascent into Heaven is the Cross that we are each called to take up. (Matthew 10:38, Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23) Consequently, if the ladder's bottom step in the life of Christ – the lowest bar of the Cross – is His death and resurrection, it's the first step on our path of ascension into Heaven.

This "death and resurrection," the first crosspiece to living a life in Christ, is Baptism and the new birth about which Jesus sought to instruct Nicodemus that night. Thus, St. Paul can say, "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?" (Romans 6:3) At the foot of the Cross, on the first bar, we can "stand again" as the Greek word for resurrection (ana-stasis) implies.

Having been reborn into Christ, we now must take on the "mind of Christ." This, of course, is accomplished through the gifts of the Spirit. (1 Corinthians 2:12-16) By the sacrament of Confirmation, the Church teaches that we are fortified and made mature and able to live a life of truth. This is the second crosspiece of the ascent into Heaven, by which "the Spirit of truth comes," and He guides us "into all the truth." (John 16:13) By it we live a life of evangelization, spreading the good news and being witnesses. We live our life in Christ and become witnesses to the life of Christ. Where Christ's hands are nailed to the Cross, we ascend to the task of doing the work of His hands.

The topmost crosspiece in the ascent (the first in the descent of the Only-Begotten Son) is the Word's becoming flesh, the mystery of the Incarnation, where Christ the eternal King is born and made man. In the order of our life in Christ, this is our participation in the body and blood of Christ. It is our reception and adoration of the Eucharist. Here at the top bar of the Cross, we are joined to the ...