Text: Acts 1:1-14
First came the resurrection at Easter. Then came the shelter-in-place order from Jesus.
If you missed this part of the story before you’re in good company. The first chapter of Acts is usually read each year in our church, but the things we notice change depending on what’s going on in our lives. Acts begins by looking back: after the resurrection Jesus appeared to his disciples over a period of forty days, teaching them. Then, verse four says, “while staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father.” He ordered them not to leave Jerusalem.
No, it’s not the same as our situation today, but it’s worth noting. Why did he order them not to leave? To wait for the promise of the Father. And what is the promise of the Father? To “baptize them with the Holy Spirit.” To infuse them with divine power and purpose. They were preparing for something. But for what, exactly?
They had an idea what it would be: “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” Is this the time that you’re going to swoop in and take power and make everything right? It’s not a bad question. Many of us have our own version of that question these days: “when will things be right again?” We may have our own fantasies if not about Jesus about someone, some leader, swooping in and flipping a switch and making it all go away. Surely some of our leaders have that fantasy.
But Jesus gave a very Jesus-y answer, offering a truth that might be hard to hear: “it’s not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.” In other words, things will be made right eventually, but the world has a timing all its own, far bigger than ourselves. It’s not for us to know.
So many questions that are being asked in our present moment are about time. Is this the time things will go back to normal? Is this the time we can “reopen the economy,” whatever that means? If not, when? When will this end? But we don’t know, any more than our church ancestors knew how long the 1918 influenza pandemic would last, or the Civil War, or World War II, or the oil crisis, and so on. Is this the time? If not, when?
Jesus suggests those aren’t the best questions could be asking. “It is not for you to know…” he says, “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.”
In other words, it’s not for you to know when everything will be made right. But I’ve got a job for you right now. You’ll get power from the Holy Spirit to go out into the world as my witnesses. What exactly is a witness? We’ll come back to that. For now, notice how Jesus gives them a new question to ask: not when will you make things better, but what do you call us to do? From waiting for Jesus to fix everything, to taking responsibility for a shared call to action.
Then, just to make it more clear, he leaves, in this remarkably confusing event called the ascension: “when he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of sight.” Well, OK, sure. Yeah, people are lifted up and disappear into clouds all the time right? Many modern readers tend to be bothered by this sort of thing, that goes against the way we understand the world works. And in a Bible Study we can explore all of those complexities but stories are told to make a point, which seems to be that Jesus gave them a job to do, promised them the power to do it, and then he left them to it to support them in new ways. As the disciples were gazing upwards, two angels came and asked, “why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” as if to say, don’t you get it? You’ve got a job: One, wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit, and then two, be my witnesses to the end of the earth. So why are you standing here gawking? Get to it.
Well, they had a lot to process so I think it was okay to stand and look towards the heavens a bit. They had wanted Jesus to fix everything for them, and instead he gave them a promise and a job to do. I imagine that’s when, maybe for the first time, they realized the weight of responsibility that they carried as Jesus’ representatives on earth, to carry out his mission. Reality sank in: they had hard stuff to do, and Jesus wasn’t going to do it for them.
In a way it’s like growing up, which is a life-long process that is both exciting and terrifying of realizing that you are now responsible for things that used to be done for you: tying your own shoes, making your own appointments, stocking your kitchen, managing your money. Even more exciting and terrifying is realizing that YOU are responsible for doing what Jesus did: showing a world ruled by men who call themselves gods a God of endless love and grace, justice and mercy, healing and joy. No wonder they wanted Jesus to do it for them.
Today, Jesus is also listening to our questions and giving us better questions to ask, in this case through the wisdom of public health leaders. “Everyone wants to know when this will end,” said Devi Sridhar, a public health expert, “That’s not the question. The right question is: how do we continue?” Sridhar was quoted in an article in The Atlantic exploring how to prepare ourselves for reality, which as another expert Michael Osterholm said, “isn’t about the next couple of weeks. This is about the next two years.”
Lord, have mercy.
If you, as the disciples did, need a few moments to gaze towards heaven with teary eyes as reality sits in, take the time to do that.
And, we have a job to do, as the church, called and charged by Jesus himself be his witnesses on earth. To show him to the world so that others can experience his love and power too. That’s why growing a church matters by the way: not to keep an institution going for its own sake but to show Jesus to others for everyone’s sake. And right now the world needs everything Jesus has to offer. So we’d better prepare for action.
In the coming weeks we’ll be exploring stories of the church’s early ministry, so that we can live out God’s Action Plan [show graphic] for our ministry in this time. Today we are preparing for action, so that we can jump into sharing all we can, communing with one another, seeking health and wellness for all God’s children, claiming our moral voice, and embracing hope in the shadow of death. Each week there will be a clear and specific call to action. It’s a big ask. So it’s worth remembering that those first disciples did receive the gift of the Spirit as Jesus promised. Then they got to work.
We will do the same, and it starts by getting prepared. In a way we’ve been preparing for years, just as the disciples did. We’ve heard sacred stories, explored new ways of worship and learning and prayer, discerned a call to renew our ministry to our community, and adopted new bylaws that let us move quickly and flexibly in the direction God is calling us. Whew. Good timing indeed.
The work in this time is to move from preparation to action, just like those disciples so long ago. So what did they do? They returned to Jerusalem and they went to a room upstairs where they constantly devoted themselves to prayer. That might sound backwards but it’s not. The only way to sustain faithful action in the world is to be rooted in our connections to one another and to God. Otherwise, the moment the wind picks up, we’ll be blown away.
So, later in the service, Nayna, our Minister for Community Life will demonstrate a small project you can do with yourself or your family for just a few minutes to prepare for each day by reflecting prayerfully on what you need from God and then symbolically carrying that with you throughout the day. We encourage you to actually do this, and to share pictures so that we can be connected to each other and show our community what we’re up to.
This is a big moment. So, let’s finish preparing for action. Nobody will do it for us, but with God’s help, we can be Jesus’ witnesses to our community today. Because big moments call for big things. And Jesus calls us to nothing less.
Amen.
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