Origin Stories: The Ascension (Acts 1:1-11)

Intro

There’s a book in the Bible that I’ve wanted to preach for a long time: the book of Acts. If I’m honest, it’s probably my favorite book in the Bible. I don’t know if a preacher is supposed to say that, maybe a preacher is supposed to love all the books in the Bible equally like a father loves all his kids equally, but there it is. It’s one of my favorites. For years I figured that it would be the book I’d want to open this new building with. On top of that, it seemed like opening our new building at The Bridge would dovetail perfectly with the ending of COVID. It was going to be a bright new day, nothing but sunshine and lollipops, and Acts would be the perfect compliment to that as a book of triumph and growth. Can you tell that I dabble with idealism? Of course, things didn’t turn out that way. COVID is not over and if anything, the world is darker and more divided than ever before. For a moment, I doubted this preaching choice. And then I realized, Craig, you’re a dummy. Which is a frequent realization. I also realized, as I read through Acts again, that the church did not emerge and grow in lollipop season. The church emerged and grew in a time of political and national turmoil, facing potential divisions from within and intense persecution from outside. And yet, God moved mightily in that time.

See, I’ve sometimes thought that COVID is a barrier to the work of the Spirit. That God just can’t do the really good stuff with a situation like this going on. Some of us think that about life in general: God can’t move until life is in order, once everything else is settled, then maybe it’s Jesus time. But that’s…skubalon (a great New Testament Greek word for excrement). He’s done it before, and He can do it again. 

Acts is the origin story of the church. Origin stories are great. Every superhero has one. My favorite is Superman, and his origin story is well known: the last son of Krypton, sent to earth by his parents, discovered in a Kansas corn field by Jonathan and Martha Kent, grows up in Smallville and begins discovering his superhuman abilities. It’s how it all began. Acts is how it all began in the epic story of the church. And just like you need to keep your eyes on the vision ahead, as we talked about the last two weeks, it’s also crucial to remember where you came from. Sometimes, when an individual or a group starts with a bang and later loses thei way, they need to go back to the beginning. As an origin story, Acts reminds us what we’re about as a church. It’s a book that reminds us who we are and where our power comes from. It’s our foundation. So here’s my prayer: that as we are immersed in this book, in our origin story, we will actually see it come to life before our eyes. That we will actually see the kinds of things in this book happening among us today. That’s a daring thing to say, and maybe God will choose not to, and maybe we won’t make the space for Him. But you might as well know that’s my prayer and my hope!

Here’s how the book begins, the origin of the origin story:

In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen.

Acts 1:1-2

A few points of introduction. First, the author of this book is a follower of Jesus named Luke. Luke was part of the apostle Paul’s mission team. There’s some question, on the basis of something Paul says in Colossians 4 (verses 11 and 14), if Luke was a Gentile. Which would likely make Luke the only non-Jewish human author in the Bible. Luke was also a doctor and he was all about precision. He set out to thoroughly research the events of Jesus’ life, as well as the emergence of the church, and wrote a two volume work on these events. We know them as the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, or Acts. He dedicates both books to a man named Theophilus, who may have been an influential Roman Luke was trying to win over to a more favorable view of the Christian movement.

Luke says that in his former book- the Gospel of Luke- he gave an account of what Jesus began to do and to teach. And this is where my entire series title and theme falls apart. It lasted all of five minutes. In a really crucial sense, Acts is not the origin story of the church. In a big-picture sense, of course, the origin stretches back to the creation of the world where God’s plans were put in motion. However, in a more immediate sense, the origin story of the church is Jesus. If the Gospel is what Jesus began to do and to teach, then Acts is the story of what Jesus continues to do and to teach. Luke says in verse 2 that Jesus gave instructions through the Holy Spirit, and in the Gospel, he shows how Jesus was anointed by and empowered by the Holy Spirit. You know what Luke is going to make a big point of in Acts? That the church is anointed by and empowered by that same Holy Spirit. Again, the origin story of the church is the story of what Jesus continues to do and to teach. It’s all rooted in Jesus. You and I, all of us together as followers of Jesus, are meant to continue what Jesus did and taught.

1. The Ascension

Let’s keep going.

After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them.“Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

Acts 1:3-11

I want to start with this last part, about what we call the ascension of Jesus. My guess is that this is one of the most neglected events in the life of Jesus. We talk a lot about the death of Jesus, the resurrection, walking on water, that time Jesus said not to judge, which some people seem to think is the only thing Jesus ever said, we talk about the birth of Jesus- don’t even get me started there. Some of you want to start singing Christmas songs now in September. But the ascension? We barely think about it. That’s probably because it doesn’t make very much sense to us- I mean, where does Jesus go? Is he like a rocket ship, ascending through the stratosphere? Is he residing on some planet out there in space? Is that where heaven is? Could we discover heaven if we explored the universe far enough? What is going on?! And even if we get that part, we’re probably not sure what it means for us. 

But there’s a reason Luke starts with this. Everything that he’s going to tell us about in this book, this whole origin story, is dependent on the ascension. But before I get into that, let’s try to explore what actually happens in the ascension.

First, Luke tells us that Jesus appeared to his disciples over the course of 40 days. And what you need to know is that the same mystery about the ascension applies to those events. In one story, Jesus spends a day with two disciples until they finally realize who he is, at which point he vanishes from sight (Luke 24:13-35). In another story, the disciples are meeting together behind locked doors when suddenly Jesus appears among them (John 20:19-20). Where did he come from and where did he go? It’s not just an ascension issue, it’s a Jesus-in-his-resurrected-body issue.

Second, he is taken up and hidden by a cloud. We read about clouds a few other times in the Bible. In Luke’s Gospel, he tells us about the “Transfiguration”, when Jesus was transformed- became shiny- in the sight of a couple of the disciples on a mountaintop as they were enveloped by a cloud. From that cloud came the voice of God the Father. Back in the Old Testament, Moses was hidden by a cloud on top of Mt. Sinai when he received the 10 commandments, and the cloud was identified as the glory of God. Later on, a cloud filled the tabernacle, a moving worship centre set up by Moses in the wilderness. That cloud was a representation of the glory and presence of God. The point in the ascension is not that Jesus goes so high in the sky that he gets lost in the clouds, but that He is taken up into the glory and presence of God the Father. Another biblical way of saying this is that Jesus sits down at the right hand of the throne of God (eg. Acts 2:33).

Third, this gets at what is meant by the word “heaven”. Heaven is not a separate location somewhere in the universe. And it is also not some non-physical reality. Seriously. It’s not that Jesus gets resurrected, appears for 40 days in a resurrection body, and then discards his body once he ascends. The angels even tell the disciples he’s coming back in the same way he left. In other words, he doesn’t stop having a body when he’s taken up to heaven. So what or where is it? Here’s N.T. Wright with an explanation:

”Heaven and earth…are two different dimensions of God’s good creation…heaven relates to earth tangentially so that the one who is in heaven can be present simultaneously anywhere and everywhere on earth.”

N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope, 111

Wright also suggests that heaven and earth operate in different dimensions of space, matter, and maybe even time. That’s some heavy-duty advanced physics that I’m not qualified to opine on. The point, though, is that heaven is a dimension of God’s creation and serves as a kind of control room for the universe.

Bottom line so far: the ascension of Jesus means that in his resurrected state, he has been taken up into the presence and glory of God the Father, where he exercises his authority over heaven and earth. Does that make sense at all? Two people nod their heads. Moving on!

2. What the Ascension means: Holy Spirit

What does this all mean for us here today? In verses 4-5, Jesus talks about how John the Baptist baptized with water. People were immersed in water as a sign of washing and turning from sin. Jesus says that something much more intense is going to soon happen to the disciples. They are going to be baptized with, immersed in, the Holy Spirit. The disciples probably didn’t grasp exactly what this meant. How do you get baptized with a spirit? But Jesus reminds them that he had told them about this before, that this was a promise from God. The question we should be asking is, when? When did Jesus say this? What had he told them?

Good news! We have that conversation! One of the places we can go to for that is this section from John 14-16. Jesus is eating the Passover meal with his disciples on the night that he was to be betrayed, and he knew it. He told them that his departure was now near. Think about what that would have been like for the disciples. For three years you have given to following this man and your life has been totally turned upside down. You have purpose, you have an identity, you have a community- you’ve got these crazy brothers and sisters that have been along for the whole ride. You’re hanging out as you always have, and suddenly you find out this isn’t just any party. This is now a goodbye party. Can you imagine the sorrow and the heaviness? Most goodbyes might be temporary: a friend might be moving, but you know you’ll still see them. Others are permanent, but you have time to prepare, which maybe mitigates the shock. But for the disciples, to hear the news that night from the person they loved most in the world, must have hit them like a ton of bricks. 

Here’s what Jesus says to comfort them in John 16. Warning: at first, it doesn’t sound like much comfort:

“You are filled with grief because I have said these things. But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”

John 16:6-7

So Jesus is saying, I have to go…for your benefit! If I stay, if we continue on in this way, it will be to your detriment. For you to live life as God intends you and calls you to live, I need to go. Because me going is the only way I can send the Advocate. Who is the Advocate? It’s clear from Jesus’ teaching in John that this is one way he refers to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a counsellor, a helper, a friend, an indwelling presence. Jesus goes on to explain that the Advocate will convict people of sin, teach people about judgment and righteousness, and lead people into the truth about God (John 16:8-13). The Holy Spirit is God’s promised gift to His people going back to the prophets of the Old Testament.

The question is, why is this better? Wouldn’t you and I choose to be able to actually see and touch Jesus, to hear his audible words, to hang out with him, to witness his Spikeball skills? Because he’d have those, right?! One answer to this could be pragmatic. Jesus knew this movement was about to take off. I mean, 10 days later, the number of disciples in Jerusalem expanded from 120 to about 3000 in a single day. More on that in a couple of weeks. If this movement depended on Jesus, embodied, to be everywhere for everyone in the flesh, it wasn’t going to work. Maybe a terrible analogy, but when you elect a government that you think will best take care of your interests and the interests of your country, you don’t expect the Prime Minister to show up at your house every time you have a dispute with your neighbour. (In that analogy, you’d probably prefer he not!)

Then there’s the transformational reason. While the disciples walked with Jesus, there was change that took place in their lives. And they did have some measure of authority to do things they couldn’t do before, like driving out some demons. But when the Spirit came, things really ramped up. They were transformed in a new way. Their hearts were changed. They were given gifts for ministry. Because the power of Jesus was no longer something external to them. They were baptized in it. They were immersed in it. In fact, they were indwelt by it. The Spirit had come to dwell within them and glorify Jesus through them. And inside is deeper than outside. Within is more transformative than without. It was better for them that Jesus ascend, so that they could be baptized with the Jesus-glorifying Holy Spirit. 

And then there’s the theological reason. Of all the roles of the Holy Spirit, maybe the primary one according to Jesus in John 16:14, is to glorify Jesus. And the Spirit can only glorify Jesus if Jesus has taken his position of authority at the Father’s right hand. The Spirit can only come if Jesus goes. In God’s wisdom, that’s the event that triggers the giving of the gift.

I know that some of you feel uncomfortable with all of this talk. You’ve been burnt before by people who claimed to be Spirit-filled, Spirit-baptized. You’ve seen abuses by churches who went off the Holy Spirit deep-end, you’ve heard stories of healthy churches going off the rails. You love Jesus, but you’re not sure what to do with the Spirit. But again, the Spirit is all about glorifying Jesus. The Spirit does what Jesus does. And the Spirit is the gift the Father wants to give us, and our ability to receive that gift is why Jesus ascended to the Father. When we refuse that gift, it’s maybe a bit like a child rejecting the gift of a new bicycle from their father. Yes, it might be a bit scary- it does come with a crash helmet after all! But it’s given for your benefit, to enable you to do what you could not do before!

I want to encourage you today, whatever misgivings you have, to be open to more of the Holy Spirit. For you to be who God has called you to be, for you to serve Jesus and make him known, it’s the gift you need to have. It’s the gift Jesus gave up everything for you to have.

3. What the Ascension means: the kingdom

That’s what the ascension means for the Spirit. Now let’s talk about what it means for the kingdom of God. The disciples hear about the promised gift, and they make an assumption. This must signal that God is going to re-establish the political fortunes of Israel. This would have been an easy enough assumption to make. The Old Testament prophetic books were full of promises about the restoration of Israel. Israel had once been a glorious kingdom, ruled by men like David and Solomon. But it had long since fallen on hard times. In the time of the disciples, the Roman Empire ruled, and before that it had been the Greeks, Persians, and Babylonians. The longing of many Jews was for independence, for glory, and they believed it was on the way. Some of those promises for restoration were found in prophets who also spoke about the Spirit. Get the Spirit, see God’s kingdom come through the political restoration of Israel. Again, a natural assumption.

You know what else is a natural assumption for a lot of Christians today? That the Kingdom of God can and should be identified with the kingdom of the world, or at least that they’re deeply intertwined. This is a temptation whenever there’s a democratic election, as we recently did in Canada. We become convinced that the only way the church can thrive is if one particular party forms government, or we put all our hope in some politician to turn the moral tide of a nation. But Jesus never organized a movement to displace the Romans, and neither did any Christian leader for the centuries after. Instead, Jesus said at his trial in front of Pilate, “my kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” (John 18:36)

So how does God’s kingdom relate to this world? One of the most helpful analogies I’ve read is from C.S. Lewis in his classic Mere Christianity. He wrote during the years of World War II, so his context influences this. He said that the world is essentially enemy-occupied territory, like the way Nazi Germany had come to occupy France in his day. The world belongs to God, He is the rightful king. However, a rebellion and invasion has taken place, led by Satan but joined by many of the human race. Lewis said that what Christmas represents is the rightful king making landfall in his country, but subtly an in disguise. And I would add that the ascension of Jesus represents the rightful king setting up his throne in his own land. That’s how the Bible speaks of the ascension. At the end of the Gospel of Matthew, after his resurrection and just before his ascension, Jesus says that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him (Matthew 28:18). The rightful king of the world has set up his throne.

But the analogy goes farther. Even though the king has set up his throne, the rebellion remains. The majority of people don’t recognize him or bow the knee. So why doesn’t the king just go out and squash the rebellion and enforce submission? This gets at how the Kingdom of God is both already and not yet. It’s established but hasn’t come in its fullness. Jesus said that the kingdom is like a mustard seed that starts small but slowly grows and emerges from the ground. He said that the kingdom was like a bit of yeast that works its way through the whole batch slowly and gradually (Matthew 13:31-33). The King does it this way so that as many people as possible will freely and willingly choose to give him allegiance, rather than being forced.

When Lewis used the analogy, he talked about how little respect there would be for a Frenchman who only declared allegiance to his rightful king after the Germans had been decisively and finally defeated. Because that’s a bit removed from us, I’ll use a sports analogy…because, you know, it’s me. Everybody knows there’s a big difference between a true fan and a bandwagon fan. I have been a Toronto Raptors basketball fan since they became a team back in 1995. I was a Manitoba kid, and I’m sorry to say that between the Raptors and the Vancouver Grizzlies, I chose the Raptors from day one. Kind of a good choice in retrospect, amen? I cheered for that team for more than two decades, even though they were awful and the laughingstock of the league. I watched them through the worst years and the slightly less worse years, never wavering. Every year I believed it would turn around, convinced that guys like Sonny Weems were the next Michael Jordan. For those who don’t know, Sonny Weems was not the next Michael Jordan. Then the Raptors became respectable for a few years and more people got behind them. And then 2019 happened. Suddenly, for two months of that exhilarating ride to the NBA Championship, every hockey-loving Canadian was a Raptors fan. So much joy. But can I tell you how different of an experience it was for somebody who had stuck with them for 24 years of brutality? I literally jumped and shrieked with joy. I couldn’t believe it! I watched hours and hours of post-game coverage and analysis, shocked and in disbelief.

That’s not a bandwagon fan reaction. Jesus wants people to choose to bow the knee freely, willingly. He is the rightful king and the ascension means that the Kingdom has been established in the world through the enthronement of the king. But we live in this time when the enemy occupation is still very much in force and trying to draw people away from the king. So where does that leave us?

4. What the Ascension means: witness

It leaves us with the third implication of the ascension. The ascension is the enthronement of Jesus as rightful king, right? His people- the church- are those who bow the knee to him, who live by his ways and emulate his character in a world that is often opposed to that. And the job of his people, in addition to living in this way, is to be a witness to his status as king. This is what the Spirit is given to us for: to glorify Jesus by dwelling in power within us. To put it all together, we are Spirit-empowered witnesses that Jesus is the rightful king. According to Luke, those are the last words that Jesus speaks to his disciples: you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). To go back to the C.S. Lewis metaphor, we are like subversive counter-agents spreading the news that the rightful king has set up shop. (Did you know you don’t have to live this way? You don’t have to bow the knee to the tyrant! Did you know that the true king is here, among us?)

How do we do this? Just like there are plenty of people scared off of the Holy Spirit thing because of abuses, there are plenty of people scared off of the whole witness thing because of how badly they’ve seen it done. They’ve witnessed manipulation and coercion, or at least are aware of that through history. We’ve got tragic examples of that in our nation’s history from the residential school system, where professing Christians imposed faith on First Nations people. But here’s the crucial point that N.T. Wright, our old friend from 30 minutes ago: “the method of the kingdom will match the message of the kingdom.” (Surprised by Hope, 112) The message of the kingdom focuses on the death and resurrection of Jesus. Which means that the method of the kingdom witnesses will imitate that. Which leads the apostle Paul to talk about how “we always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body” (2 Corinthians 4:10). We bear the death of Jesus so the life of Jesus may be revealed.

We are to be witnesses to the fact that Jesus is king and that in him is forgiveness and redemption. But we don’t do this through coercion or manipulation, and we don’t do it through legal and political means, and we don’t do it through force. We do it by bearing the fruit of the Spirit- love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control. We do it by being willing to lay down our lives, our comfort, our riches, our luxuries, for the name of Jesus. We do it by always being ready to give an answer for the reason for our hope, and that we do it with gentleness and respect. We do it by healing, teaching, doing Jesus things. That’s what the early church did. That’s what we’re going to see in the coming months. Remember, this is our origin story. This is who we are. This is what we’re about.

Conclusion

So let’s go! Let’s do this! Jesus has ascended into heaven, where he has been given all authority in heaven and earth. He is the king, and from his throne he has sent the Holy Spirit to baptize His people, empowering them to be his witnesses. The ascension is key. You know that now. Let’s live it out! Let’s proclaim in our words and deeds that the rightful king has been enthroned, and that this king, who gave his life for us and then rose from the dead in power, reigns forever!