'Cause I Gotta Have Faith - Part VII

Continuing with the Nicene Creed and the 12 Articles of Faith,

Article 6:

Current Text:

…he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father

Beginning Advent 2011:

He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

Ok, so there’s really no change in the wording here…just a change in the sentence structure before this article.  But that being said, remember that these “changes” to the wording of things in Mass that we’ve been talking about are not “changes” in the sense that we’re changing what’s happening, or even changing our beliefs.  We’re simply correcting our translation of the Latin into English.  This article simply was easier to translate from the start, so the words that we say here won’t change.

Now, the concept illustrated here is another one that we were able to take straight out of the Bible with absolutely no interpretation or revelation necessary.  Mark 16:19 says, “So then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God.”  This also points to Psalm 110, Verse 1, which says, “The Lord says to you, my lord, ‘Take your throne at my right hand, while I make your enemies your footstool.”  The footnotes of the New American Bible on this verse say that this verse points to another passage, that being Matthew 22:41-46, which is a pretty clever one:

While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus questioned them, saying, “What is our opinion about the Messiah?  Whose son is he?”  They replied, “David’s.”  He said to them, “How, then, does David, inspired by the Spirit, call him “lord,” saying: ‘The Lord said to my lord, “Sit at my right hand until I place your enemies under your feet’?”  If David calls him “lord,” how can he be his son?”  No one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.

This is another verse illustrating the idea of the Messiah, because Jesus was trying to point out that King David (the author of the Psalms) would be saying that there would be someone more important than himself (which was a really big deal at the time, seeing as how David was KING, and all), but separate in theory from God the Father.  King David says that the LORD (God the Father) says to “my lord”, meaning David’s lord/master, who, with David speaking as King, could only be speaking of God the Father or the Messiah, and since he has already said that THE Lord is speaking to David’s lord, unless God is talking to himself—which, I guess, in a way he was—he must be talking to someone else, and if there is someone else David is referring to as being higher in rank than himself, and other than THE LORD, it must be the Messiah.  This is pointing out how the Messiah must not be David’s literal son, but must come from some higher source…Jesus as the “Son of God.”  The original verse of Psalm 110 which led us on this re-directed path points to Mark 16:19 which blatantly states what we are saying here in the 6^th Article of Faith:  that Jesus, after his death and resurrection, ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father.

So by “seated at the right hand of the Father, we must mean that after we die, we’ll be able to go to a room where God the Father is sitting in a big chair, with his long, white beard and his flowing robes with Jesus sitting in another big chair on God the Father’s right side with his own beard and robes, right?  Well, it probably won’t exactly be like that.  Again, no one on this earth can say for SURE what will LITERALLY be going on in heaven—we’ll just have to wait and see if the Bible’s descriptions of heaven are literal or figurative and symbolic.  Our best understanding at this time, however, is that since God is infinite and is not bound by a body (and as such, probably does not have a long white beard), Mark 16:19 is probably symbolic.  So the question becomes, “What is the significance of Jesus sitting at the right hand of God.”  In the Jewish tradition, the place of importance at the table was the place to the immediate right of the host, or head of the table.  This was generally the place where the oldest son would sit, next to his father, to show his importance and his place as the head after his father.  So it seems very fitting that Jesus would be given the highest level of importance in Heaven, being the Son of God the Father. 

“What about the Holy Spirit?” you ask?  Why wouldn’t he ALSO be seated at the right hand of God the Father?  Just be patient…we’ll get there all in good time.  I’m trying to make this as easy on everyone as possible.  So until then, keep the faith!  (well, you should probably keep the faith, even AFTER that, but you know what I mean…….)