Jesus Ascended For Us: Our Story Continues

Our text for Sunday is Acts 1: 1-12, focusing on the ascension of our Lord Jesus.

Ascension Day is a rather underrated holiday in the Christian Calendar.  Falls forty days after Easter, and ten days before Pentecost.  Which plops in onto a Thursday.  We do better when things fall on a Sunday. 

For Luke, the ascension is the crossover event from book one, the Gospel of Luke, and book two, the Acts of the Apostles.  That makes sense because if the marketing folks had gotten involved, book one would not be called the Gospel of Luke, but the Acts of Jesus. 

There are points of interest in these verses of the ascension to be highlighted.  One is the renewed Promise of the Father.  The baptism of John (by water) is going to be ‘upgraded’ by this Promise, to the baptism of the Holy Spirit. 

The second is the expectations that the disciples are carrying in all of this.  Their question is “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom of Israel?”

I am challenged by the language of the ‘kingdom of Israel’.  Is that synonymous with the 'kingdom of heaven' or 'kingdom of God', the language I am far more familiar with in the gospels?  With the "Ultimate Bible Study" Jesus has been leading for this past forty days, maybe the language of the 'kingdom of Israel' is a prequel to the expansion of the kingdom according to Jesus' word in the gospels? 

A third point of interest began as a misconstruing of Jesus words on my part.  My first thought was Jesus’ answer to this 'kingdom of Israel' question indicated there was knowledge the Father had that He did not.  “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.”  But read that carefully, Jesus is not sharing that He is ignorant of the timeline.  Perhaps this is the Biblical precedent of information shared on a ‘need to know’ basis, as in, we don't 'need to know'.

In fact, that is not Jesus’ concern.  There is a great line that says “when someone speaks to you, everything before the ‘but’ doesn’t matter”. 

So, look at the full response of Jesus to the disciples and their question: “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. ⁸ But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”   

There’s the mission.  The Holy Spirit is bringing power and they are Jesus’ witnesses according to the geographical steps of Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth (which actually is one way to structure the book of Acts).

From there, they are caught gawking as the Lord is lifted up and taken from their sight by a cloud.  Final word comes from a couple of angels, ‘two men in white robes’.  Is this the same role as those who were at the empty tomb, divine narrators to fill in the gaps of the story that unfolds?

“This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

He ascended for us.  Why?  To begin the mission.  To unleash the Holy Spirit.  The disciples have their work and we have ours.  The mission concludes at the finale of Our Story, when Jesus returns, for us.  Then, we will have all our questions answered? 

Peace, pastor pete.