Miracle 5 Ascension
Preaching
Preaching the Miracles
Series II, Cycle A
1. Text
[Mark] So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.19 And they went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it.20
[Luke] Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you - that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled."44
Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures,45 and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day,46 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.47 You are witnesses of these things.48 And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."49 Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them.50 While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven.51
And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy;52 and they were continually in the temple blessing God.53
[Acts] In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning1 until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.2 After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.3 While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. "This," he said, "is what you have heard from me;4 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."5
So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?"6 He replied, "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.7 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."8 When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.9
While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them.10 They said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."11
2. What's Happening?
In three separate New Testament readings, the story of the Ascension unfolds. The ascension lay midway in the journey from Good Friday and Easter to Pentecost. The writer/editor of Luke and Acts, the same person by tradition, used Mark or Matthew as sources. He shares the view of these events as fulfillment of the predictions of scripture.1
The Gospel According To Mark
First Point Of Action
After Christ speaks to the eleven disciples, he is taken up into heaven and sits down at the right hand of God.
Second Point Of Action
The disciples go out and proclaim the good news everywhere.
Third Point Of Action
Christ works with the disciples and confirms the message by the signs that accompany it.
The Gospel According To Luke
First Point Of Action
Christ repeats the words he spoke while he was still with the disciples; that is, everything written about him in the law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled.
Second Point Of Action
Opening their minds to understand the scriptures, Christ says it was written there that the Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day. He says repentance and forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. Christ tells the disciples they are witnesses to these things. They are to stay in the city as he will send them power from God as God had promised.
Third Point Of Action
Christ leads the disciples out as far as Bethany, lifts up his hands, and blesses them.
Fourth Point Of Action
As Christ blesses the disciples, he withdraws from them and is carried up into heaven.
Fifth Point Of Action
The disciples worship him. They return to Jerusalem with great joy. They are continually in the temple blessing God.
The Book Of Acts
First Point Of Action
The writer summarizes his recording of all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day he was taken up to heaven.
Second Point Of Action
Continuing, the storyteller says that over a forty--day period by many convincing proofs Christ presents himself alive to the apostles. Christ speaks about the kingdom of God.
Third Point Of Action
Quoting Jesus, the writer relates Christ's ordering the apostles not to leave Jerusalem but to wait there for God's promise of baptizing them with the Holy Spirit.
Fourth Point Of Action
The writer reports that when the apostles come together, they ask Christ if this were the time he would restore the kingdom to Israel. Christ says that is not for them to know. He reaffirms that they will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon them. They are to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
Fifth Point Of Action
Christ is lifted up into a cloud and out of their sight. As the apostles watch his going, suddenly two men in white robes stand by them.
Sixth Point Of Action
Addressing the apostles as "[m]en of Galilee," they ask why
they stand looking up toward heaven. They continue, "This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."
3. Connecting Points - Conversations
Interviewing The Angels
Asker: Here you are again, two men in white robes reminding us of the angels at the resurrection tomb. You explain to the disciples. You bridge earth and heaven. Are you more than our wanting to know both sides now? Is our wondering about your existence merely another expression of our limited perception? What about heaven? We live in a different time. Our men and women have been in space. We know a three--story universe is not reality. We think visually. We speak with word pictures.
An Angel: Name it, it exists. A concrete object is simple to name. The basic description of a squirrel gives the name "squirrel" its definition. You people speak of things in the language of metaphor. That is how you communicate about such intangible ideas as heaven. Heaven is like ... you say. For a trout fisher, heaven has to be like the peace of a brook as the birds awaken. For musicians, heaven is knowing the musical score well enough to let the song move through them. You describe heaven in earthly terms.
Asker: Then, do we construct heaven according to what enables us to feel harmony? Do we make heaven the ideal of what we most need in our lives at a given time - a restoration of the body, a renewal of the spirit, a place where relationships are graceful, a realm where all people live together peacefully, a constant and stable home for God?
An Angel: Who is to judge another's concept of heaven? The notion of heaven embodies hope. The notion of heaven draws us beyond ourselves. By trying to make heaven a concrete place, we confine it. Heaven is a wished--for, yearned--for, better way of being.
Asker: Then we cannot hasten our journey to heaven. It must come in its own time, in God's time.
Angel: Pondering and puzzling over heaven nourish spiritual growth. To your mind, perhaps, God must have a home, a separate place, a special abode. There must be more than earth, you say. Now outmoded, kingdom imagery once equipped your church chancels with throne and footstool: "Thus says the Lord: Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool" (Isaiah 66:1a). Your churches have replaced distancing dais and elaborate throne beneath heavenly painted ceilings. Your symbols now bring God closer to worshipers. Our notion of heaven changes as we grow.
Interviewing The First Disciple
Asker: You witnessed the ascent of Christ.
Disciple: I was present. I have firsthand knowledge of it. I will witness to it the rest of my life.
When Christ ascended, I too wanted to clutch to him, to hold him back. In its own way, this change was as hard as losing him on the cross. I felt earthbound. However, Christ's ascent was not in isolation or in privacy. It happened as he lifted up his own hands to bless us. Christ blessed us, but I felt he also was God's greatest blessing to us. Strange, I did not feel deserted. I felt an overwhelming sense of forgiveness and hope. Forgiveness is a miracle of the ascent. When Christ lifted up his hands, he also opened them to receive whatever was coming. Beyond an openness of spirit and attitude, I felt a heavenward opening. As if ready, he also was releasing rather than clutching us.
Asker: Then, before one can ascend, one must let go?
Disciple: We had heard of angels ascending to heaven and descending from heaven. We knew about Elijah's ascent. I ascended the mountain with Jesus several times. As the air thinned on those mountain journeys, I felt increasingly lighter, as if I might float away. Yet, I am bound to earth. Ascension is the opposite of letting earth pull you to earth. It also is the letting go of what weighs you down so you can become buoyant. Ascension is becoming light. It leaves behind heavyheartedness. It releases.
Asker: This puzzles me. You speak as if heaven were a place to which Christ went. Is releasing life as we know it and feel secure with it one meaning of making the leap of faith? You suggest that death is really a leap into new life with the veil of mystery removed.
Disciple: Playing with the English homonyms "ascent" (Latin ascendere) and "assent" (Latin adsentiri), one might say that Christ accepted the movement of his spirit toward God with total agreement. To participate in an ascent is to move toward, to climb, to move upward. To give assent is to agree, to comply, to say "yes" to.
Asker: You needed that time with Christ to allow for your own "yes."
Disciple: We needed the time. Forty days more helped. Healing, growing, and maturing all require longer than an overnight. You will remember how significant forty years and forty days were for us biblically. The days before Christ's ascent were another wilderness, another forty days of coming of age spiritually.
He did as he always had when we were together. He taught us. At first, we pondered about Christ's instructing Mary Magdalene to avoid clinging to him as he had not yet ascended. Did it mean Mary could hold on to him after his ascent? We wondered if he were already beyond our reach. We learned about holding on to Christ in an entirely different manner. Without bounds of space and time, we could grasp the essence, the Spirit of him. We had good news to proclaim.
Interviewing Christ
Asker: Christ, was the review you gave the disciples about the necessary fulfillment of scripture other than trying to make sense of what happened?
Christ: Absorbing the events was part of it. My work on earth was not quite finished. During these last forty days, I continued to teach the disciples. My followers needed to piece together the last year in the light of my earlier teaching so they might move forward.
Both hindsight and foresight have their place in gaining perspective. Sometimes it takes a critical life event to bring us to a standstill. The chaos of the crucifixion of goals turns a life into a fragmented, disjointed, and broken mess. Even those who can anticipate loss and change because of disease or disrupted relationships may lose hold of their sense of purpose and meaning. Downsizing in the workplaces of your day, for instance, must be particularly unsettling.
Such was the muddle in the hearts of my disciples. However, their last memory was not to be the anguish of the cross but the triumphant, risen, and ascending Christ. They needed this time to understand what their own belief at the resurrection would mean for the goals that would guide the rest of their lives. Further, they needed time after my ascent to become ready to greet the Spirit's coming at Pentecost. More work awaited them than they could ever imagine.
Asker: In my day, emotions quiet after a boisterous "Hallelujah Chorus" Easter. Might you describe the time between the first resurrection and ascension as a "settling down" time?
Christ: You speak as one who celebrates Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost as anniversaries. It would be a long time before the bewilderment of eyewitnesses turned to calm. At best, my disciples would remember who they were and to Whom they belonged.
Asker: We humans are impatient. We want to know the whole picture immediately. We can live only within the certainty of faith that God is present with us.
Christ: The miracle of ascension lay in the disciples' capacity to recognize my continuing presence among them. This is the affirmation of hope, the core of ascension. With the ascent, everything that happened finally fit into place. The psalmist conveys this important message of God's presence in the ascent: "If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there" (Psalm 139:8).
Asker: Why, Christ, did you not return to stay?
Christ: When you ask, you are thinking of the man Jesus who existed, as do all persons, within the history of a particular time and space. That would limit God, who is before, beyond, and within history.
Asker: How does the miracle of ascension relate to us today?
Christ: One miracle of the ascent was the movement of my followers from vulnerability and spiritual impoverishment toward empowerment. People of all times can rise above difficulties because the one who has the capacity to lift us up is with us. We all still have our own journeys through our own history of being. However, because of resurrection and ascension, we need not live those journeys within a meaningless vacuum.
Interviewing The Second Disciple
Asker: You also saw the ascent of Christ.
Second Disciple: When I saw him lifted up out of sight, I remembered the day of his transfiguration and of Moses and Elijah standing on the mountain with him. I thought, how little we understand.
Asker: The Gospel named Mark reported that you went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while Christ worked with you and confirmed the message with accompanying signs.
Second Disciple: Christ encouraged us in the conclusion of this unusual apprenticeship. He empowered us although it was not yet Pentecost. God had the confidence for ascension. The ascension prepared us for the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost.
Asker: Christ said you would receive power. The Holy Spirit would come to you.
Second Disciple: I was curious at once. That story, however, must wait for Pentecost. For now, with new grace, Christ passed on the blessing God had given him at his transfiguration. This time Christ was saying to us, "It is you, my brothers and sisters, with whom I am well pleased."
Asker: Christ empowered you. Christ wished well for you. Was it you who asked if this were the time God would restore the kingdom of Israel?
Second Disciple: This had been our yearning from the time we were children listening to the yearning of our parents. I realized this was the last chance to ask Jesus questions. I wanted to know everything. He had taught us much. How much more had I missed because I took for granted that he would be with us always? I had not understood what he meant by being with us always. Empowerment is powerful partly because it is scary. It means acting on your beliefs and your faith. It means accepting responsibility for those actions.
Asker: I wonder how one can recognize this empowerment today. We want evidence that God is working with us. We want confirmation and signs. We want the affirmation of "you, with whom I am well pleased."
Second Disciple: Empowerment moves beyond affirmation to being entrusted with the faith. As a disciple witnessing his ascent, I played the delicate and precarious role of keeping hope from vaporizing. I felt both a surge of enthusiasm and the charge of responsibility. We have only begun to know God as Sustainer as well as Creator. We have only begun to explore the strength of the Holy Spirit.
4. Words
Ascension
John sets the stage for Jesus' ascent: "Jesus said to Mary Magdalene, 'Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God" ' " (John 20:17).
Ascension Day, marking Christ's voyage from earth to heaven, preludes Pentecost. The moment of ascent is both Jesus' goodbye and Christ's glorification. Resurrection appearances of Christ flow into those of ascension. However, while earlier appearances focus on recognition, later connecting focuses on the fulfillment of scripture. Jesus Christ is alive and sovereign. The ascension was Christ's last earthly appearance. With it, the action of the kingdom of God moves from "will be" to "now is."
Bethany
On Palm Sunday, Jesus followed the road to Jerusalem from the east through Bethany and over the ridge of the Mount of Olives. The ascension site, this small village on the east slope of the Mount of Olives, stood about one and a half miles east of Jerusalem. Jesus and the disciples lodged at Bethany while attending temple ceremonies during the Passover. The stories about Simon the Leper and about Mary and Martha and Lazarus happened at Bethany.
Bless(ing)
Genesis 14:19--20a illustrates the three meanings of "bless" that have evolved using the form "blessed." "[King Melchizedek, a priest,] blessed [Abram] and said, 'Blessed be Abram by God Most High, maker of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!'"
Blessing is both to God and from God to humanity. The primary meaning is "to bend the knees." With the secondary use, one worships, adores, and praises God. God shows favor and goodness toward someone to reveal blessing. Persons who are blessed are fortunate or happy because God's blessing reassures them. Blessing, a sense of well--being and prosperity, is a free, undeserved gift from God.
"Blessed shall you be ..." (Deuteronomy 28:3--6) and "Happy are [you][those] who ..." (Psalm 1:1, Jeremiah 17:7, and Matthew 5:3--12) are blessing formulae. The well--liked worship benediction from Numbers 6:24--26 responds to the universal hunger to hear repeatedly the affirming words of the God/human connection: "The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace."
Forgiveness
To forgive is to remove what separates humanity from God, person from person, and person from self. By New Testament times, people had lost confidence in the capacity of humankind to repent. Their only hope lay in the possibility of God's granting both repentance and forgiveness. John the Baptist connected the prophetic call to repent and the promise of forgiveness through baptism. John said Jesus was coming to baptize with the Holy Spirit. In the kingdom of God, sinners know forgiveness and share in the life and power of God. We can forgive others. Because of this hope and yearning, the disciples asked Jesus if the time of the new age of Israel's political restoration had come.
Forty (Days)
Jesus remained with the disciples forty days until the ascension. The number forty is considered the most sacred of the universally holy number four. It was the time span of many wilderness experiences from Moses and Elijah to Jesus, from the Great Flood to Israel's wanderings and the spies in Canaan. The number forty showed a long period of endurance or existence. Forty years was the approximate length of one generation. A person of biblical times was considered fully grown at forty. Forty days often represented one day for each year.
Heaven
Most references speak of heaven as "heaven above," "toward heaven," "up to heaven," "under heaven," and "look down from heaven." "Earth" occurs in 699 biblical passages, while 410 verses contain "heaven." Heaven is the nebulous, poetic spirit "place" set apart from earth as the "home" of God: "The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord's throne is in heaven. His eyes behold, his gaze examines humankind" (Psalm 11:4).
Only the writer of Matthew used the term "kingdom of heaven." Except for the following verse, "In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near' " (Matthew 3:1--2), only Jesus used the phrase. Consider "the kingdom of heaven" as a name for the power and sovereignty of God rather than a place in which God's rule happens. Matthew quotes Jesus a dozen times as naming God "Father in heaven." The phrase occurs once in Mark. The prophets Ezra and Nehemiah say "God in heaven" and "the God of heaven."
Heaven carries two "concrete" metaphors in the Bible.2 It suggests the upper part of the cosmic ocean surrounding the earth. It also is a ceiling over the earth, that is, a membrane stretched across the cosmic ocean to prevent its water from overflowing. Descriptive images include a firmament (Genesis 1:6--8), a strip of hammered metal (Job 26:13), a curtain stretched like a tent (Isaiah 40:22 and Psalm 104:2), and a blanket enfolding God (Job 22:14).
Repentance
Repentance means turning away from sin and turning back to God. Repentance is not entirely of our doing but goes hand in hand with God's forgiveness. It includes the human dimension of faith, our response to God's power. The need for repentance is as real in today's social turmoil as it was in Jesus' day. We struggle with drugs, racism, poverty, and meaningless exhaustion of the spirit.
Restore
In the Old Testament, the verb "restore" became a technical term. It meant the political restoration of Israel by God. To restore is to reach toward what was once intended and meant to be. Universal yearning reaches toward the original purpose within history.
Right Hand (Of God)
Used figuratively, the right hand was a symbol of strength, victory, and power. One with a faulty right hand was in a threatened condition: "On another sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught, and there was a man there whose right hand was withered" (Luke 6:6). (See Miracle 5, Cycle B.) Soldiers put the robe and the crown on Jesus. Then they mocked him with "a reed in his right hand" (Matthew 27:29). Half the sixteen gospel references to the right hand are from Matthew.
Of the 125 biblical references to the right hand, 71 are in the Old Testament. When Israel asked his son Joseph to bring his boys for blessing, Israel laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim and his left hand on Manasseh. Joseph took his father's right hand, removed it from the head of his secondborn and put it on Manasseh's head. (See Genesis 48:14--17.)
Perhaps the best--known Old Testament passage is from Deutero--Isaiah: "[D]o not fear, for I am with you, do not be afraid, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my victorious right hand" (Isaiah 41:10). Besides a position of strength, the place at one's right is the seat of dignity and honor. (See also 1 Kings 2:19 and Psalms 18:35, 45:4, 48:18, 110:1, 118:16, 137:5, and 138:7.) Several of the 38 New Testament passages refer to the right--hand quotation or repeat the Psalm 110:1 verse, "The Lord says to my lord, 'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.' "
Theophilus
The writer of Luke and Acts addressed these books to Theophilus, the only person in the New Testament to whom writings were dedicated. (See Luke 1:3 and Acts 1:1.) However, Luke did not mean for Theophilus to be the exclusive reader of these writings. While both Greeks and Jews used the name, which means "friend of God," the person remains unknown. The name might have been a pseudonym protecting a real person from possible persecution.
5. Gospel Parallels
Parallels will be limited to the three lectionary passages studied in this chapter.
The Ascension/Heaven
In Acts, Luke reports after Christ told the disciples that they would receive the Holy Spirit and that they were witnesses, "they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight" (Acts 1:9b).
All three lectionary references use the passive voice when speaking of the ascension. The writer of Mark says after Jesus spoke to the disciples, he "was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God" (Mark 16:19). In the Gospel, Luke says Christ "withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven" (Luke 24:51).
Luke reports in Acts that he was recording the story of Jesus' teaching "until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen" (Acts 1:2).
Only here is reference to the angels. "While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, 'Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven'" (Acts 1:9--11).
Blessing
Luke speaks only in the Gospel about Christ's blessing the disciples: "Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them" (Luke 24:44). "While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven" (Luke 24:51). In response, Luke reports that the disciples worshiped Christ and "returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God" (Luke 24:52--53).
Empowerment by the Holy Spirit
In Acts, Luke reports that Christ tells the disciples to wait in Jerusalem "for the promise of the Father. 'This,' he said, 'is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now' " (Acts 1:4--5). Later, Christ says, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you" (Acts 1:8a).
Forty Days of Instruction
Luke alone in Acts numbers the forty--day period during which Christ "presented himself alive to [the disciples] by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God" (Acts 1:3).
The writer of Mark says, "[T]hey went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it" (Mark 16:20).
According to the Gospel of Luke, Christ "opened their minds to understand the scriptures" (Luke 24:45). Here only, the summary says that "repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem" (Luke 24:47). In Acts, Luke reports that Jesus gave these instructions "through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen" (Acts 1:2).
Fulfillment of the Law
In the Gospel, the writer of Luke speaks of these events as the necessary fulfillment of the Old Testament: "Then [Christ] said to them, 'These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you - that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled' " (Luke 24:44).
Jerusalem
Jesus orders the disciples "not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father" (Acts 1:4). In Luke, he says, "[S]o stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high" (Luke 24:49).
Restoration of the Kingdom
In Acts only, Luke reports the disciples asking Christ, "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6). Christ answers, "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you" (Acts 1:7--8a).
Right Hand of God
Only the writer of Mark says Jesus sat at the right hand of God. (See Mark 16:19.)
Proclaiming the Good News
Both Gospel references speak of the disciples' role in proclaiming the good news. "And they went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it" (Mark 16:20). Christ said that "repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem" (Luke 24:47).
Witnesses
In both the Gospel named Luke and Acts, Luke refers to the disciples as witnesses. Christ said, "[Y]ou will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8b). In the Gospel, he says, "You are witnesses of these things" (Luke 24:48).
____________
1. For further information, see The Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible, Volume 1.
2. See The Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible, Volume 2.
[Mark] So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.19 And they went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it.20
[Luke] Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you - that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled."44
Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures,45 and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day,46 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.47 You are witnesses of these things.48 And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."49 Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them.50 While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven.51
And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy;52 and they were continually in the temple blessing God.53
[Acts] In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning1 until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.2 After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.3 While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. "This," he said, "is what you have heard from me;4 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."5
So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?"6 He replied, "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.7 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."8 When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.9
While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them.10 They said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."11
2. What's Happening?
In three separate New Testament readings, the story of the Ascension unfolds. The ascension lay midway in the journey from Good Friday and Easter to Pentecost. The writer/editor of Luke and Acts, the same person by tradition, used Mark or Matthew as sources. He shares the view of these events as fulfillment of the predictions of scripture.1
The Gospel According To Mark
First Point Of Action
After Christ speaks to the eleven disciples, he is taken up into heaven and sits down at the right hand of God.
Second Point Of Action
The disciples go out and proclaim the good news everywhere.
Third Point Of Action
Christ works with the disciples and confirms the message by the signs that accompany it.
The Gospel According To Luke
First Point Of Action
Christ repeats the words he spoke while he was still with the disciples; that is, everything written about him in the law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled.
Second Point Of Action
Opening their minds to understand the scriptures, Christ says it was written there that the Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day. He says repentance and forgiveness of sins will be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. Christ tells the disciples they are witnesses to these things. They are to stay in the city as he will send them power from God as God had promised.
Third Point Of Action
Christ leads the disciples out as far as Bethany, lifts up his hands, and blesses them.
Fourth Point Of Action
As Christ blesses the disciples, he withdraws from them and is carried up into heaven.
Fifth Point Of Action
The disciples worship him. They return to Jerusalem with great joy. They are continually in the temple blessing God.
The Book Of Acts
First Point Of Action
The writer summarizes his recording of all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day he was taken up to heaven.
Second Point Of Action
Continuing, the storyteller says that over a forty--day period by many convincing proofs Christ presents himself alive to the apostles. Christ speaks about the kingdom of God.
Third Point Of Action
Quoting Jesus, the writer relates Christ's ordering the apostles not to leave Jerusalem but to wait there for God's promise of baptizing them with the Holy Spirit.
Fourth Point Of Action
The writer reports that when the apostles come together, they ask Christ if this were the time he would restore the kingdom to Israel. Christ says that is not for them to know. He reaffirms that they will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon them. They are to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
Fifth Point Of Action
Christ is lifted up into a cloud and out of their sight. As the apostles watch his going, suddenly two men in white robes stand by them.
Sixth Point Of Action
Addressing the apostles as "[m]en of Galilee," they ask why
they stand looking up toward heaven. They continue, "This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."
3. Connecting Points - Conversations
Interviewing The Angels
Asker: Here you are again, two men in white robes reminding us of the angels at the resurrection tomb. You explain to the disciples. You bridge earth and heaven. Are you more than our wanting to know both sides now? Is our wondering about your existence merely another expression of our limited perception? What about heaven? We live in a different time. Our men and women have been in space. We know a three--story universe is not reality. We think visually. We speak with word pictures.
An Angel: Name it, it exists. A concrete object is simple to name. The basic description of a squirrel gives the name "squirrel" its definition. You people speak of things in the language of metaphor. That is how you communicate about such intangible ideas as heaven. Heaven is like ... you say. For a trout fisher, heaven has to be like the peace of a brook as the birds awaken. For musicians, heaven is knowing the musical score well enough to let the song move through them. You describe heaven in earthly terms.
Asker: Then, do we construct heaven according to what enables us to feel harmony? Do we make heaven the ideal of what we most need in our lives at a given time - a restoration of the body, a renewal of the spirit, a place where relationships are graceful, a realm where all people live together peacefully, a constant and stable home for God?
An Angel: Who is to judge another's concept of heaven? The notion of heaven embodies hope. The notion of heaven draws us beyond ourselves. By trying to make heaven a concrete place, we confine it. Heaven is a wished--for, yearned--for, better way of being.
Asker: Then we cannot hasten our journey to heaven. It must come in its own time, in God's time.
Angel: Pondering and puzzling over heaven nourish spiritual growth. To your mind, perhaps, God must have a home, a separate place, a special abode. There must be more than earth, you say. Now outmoded, kingdom imagery once equipped your church chancels with throne and footstool: "Thus says the Lord: Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool" (Isaiah 66:1a). Your churches have replaced distancing dais and elaborate throne beneath heavenly painted ceilings. Your symbols now bring God closer to worshipers. Our notion of heaven changes as we grow.
Interviewing The First Disciple
Asker: You witnessed the ascent of Christ.
Disciple: I was present. I have firsthand knowledge of it. I will witness to it the rest of my life.
When Christ ascended, I too wanted to clutch to him, to hold him back. In its own way, this change was as hard as losing him on the cross. I felt earthbound. However, Christ's ascent was not in isolation or in privacy. It happened as he lifted up his own hands to bless us. Christ blessed us, but I felt he also was God's greatest blessing to us. Strange, I did not feel deserted. I felt an overwhelming sense of forgiveness and hope. Forgiveness is a miracle of the ascent. When Christ lifted up his hands, he also opened them to receive whatever was coming. Beyond an openness of spirit and attitude, I felt a heavenward opening. As if ready, he also was releasing rather than clutching us.
Asker: Then, before one can ascend, one must let go?
Disciple: We had heard of angels ascending to heaven and descending from heaven. We knew about Elijah's ascent. I ascended the mountain with Jesus several times. As the air thinned on those mountain journeys, I felt increasingly lighter, as if I might float away. Yet, I am bound to earth. Ascension is the opposite of letting earth pull you to earth. It also is the letting go of what weighs you down so you can become buoyant. Ascension is becoming light. It leaves behind heavyheartedness. It releases.
Asker: This puzzles me. You speak as if heaven were a place to which Christ went. Is releasing life as we know it and feel secure with it one meaning of making the leap of faith? You suggest that death is really a leap into new life with the veil of mystery removed.
Disciple: Playing with the English homonyms "ascent" (Latin ascendere) and "assent" (Latin adsentiri), one might say that Christ accepted the movement of his spirit toward God with total agreement. To participate in an ascent is to move toward, to climb, to move upward. To give assent is to agree, to comply, to say "yes" to.
Asker: You needed that time with Christ to allow for your own "yes."
Disciple: We needed the time. Forty days more helped. Healing, growing, and maturing all require longer than an overnight. You will remember how significant forty years and forty days were for us biblically. The days before Christ's ascent were another wilderness, another forty days of coming of age spiritually.
He did as he always had when we were together. He taught us. At first, we pondered about Christ's instructing Mary Magdalene to avoid clinging to him as he had not yet ascended. Did it mean Mary could hold on to him after his ascent? We wondered if he were already beyond our reach. We learned about holding on to Christ in an entirely different manner. Without bounds of space and time, we could grasp the essence, the Spirit of him. We had good news to proclaim.
Interviewing Christ
Asker: Christ, was the review you gave the disciples about the necessary fulfillment of scripture other than trying to make sense of what happened?
Christ: Absorbing the events was part of it. My work on earth was not quite finished. During these last forty days, I continued to teach the disciples. My followers needed to piece together the last year in the light of my earlier teaching so they might move forward.
Both hindsight and foresight have their place in gaining perspective. Sometimes it takes a critical life event to bring us to a standstill. The chaos of the crucifixion of goals turns a life into a fragmented, disjointed, and broken mess. Even those who can anticipate loss and change because of disease or disrupted relationships may lose hold of their sense of purpose and meaning. Downsizing in the workplaces of your day, for instance, must be particularly unsettling.
Such was the muddle in the hearts of my disciples. However, their last memory was not to be the anguish of the cross but the triumphant, risen, and ascending Christ. They needed this time to understand what their own belief at the resurrection would mean for the goals that would guide the rest of their lives. Further, they needed time after my ascent to become ready to greet the Spirit's coming at Pentecost. More work awaited them than they could ever imagine.
Asker: In my day, emotions quiet after a boisterous "Hallelujah Chorus" Easter. Might you describe the time between the first resurrection and ascension as a "settling down" time?
Christ: You speak as one who celebrates Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost as anniversaries. It would be a long time before the bewilderment of eyewitnesses turned to calm. At best, my disciples would remember who they were and to Whom they belonged.
Asker: We humans are impatient. We want to know the whole picture immediately. We can live only within the certainty of faith that God is present with us.
Christ: The miracle of ascension lay in the disciples' capacity to recognize my continuing presence among them. This is the affirmation of hope, the core of ascension. With the ascent, everything that happened finally fit into place. The psalmist conveys this important message of God's presence in the ascent: "If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there" (Psalm 139:8).
Asker: Why, Christ, did you not return to stay?
Christ: When you ask, you are thinking of the man Jesus who existed, as do all persons, within the history of a particular time and space. That would limit God, who is before, beyond, and within history.
Asker: How does the miracle of ascension relate to us today?
Christ: One miracle of the ascent was the movement of my followers from vulnerability and spiritual impoverishment toward empowerment. People of all times can rise above difficulties because the one who has the capacity to lift us up is with us. We all still have our own journeys through our own history of being. However, because of resurrection and ascension, we need not live those journeys within a meaningless vacuum.
Interviewing The Second Disciple
Asker: You also saw the ascent of Christ.
Second Disciple: When I saw him lifted up out of sight, I remembered the day of his transfiguration and of Moses and Elijah standing on the mountain with him. I thought, how little we understand.
Asker: The Gospel named Mark reported that you went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while Christ worked with you and confirmed the message with accompanying signs.
Second Disciple: Christ encouraged us in the conclusion of this unusual apprenticeship. He empowered us although it was not yet Pentecost. God had the confidence for ascension. The ascension prepared us for the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost.
Asker: Christ said you would receive power. The Holy Spirit would come to you.
Second Disciple: I was curious at once. That story, however, must wait for Pentecost. For now, with new grace, Christ passed on the blessing God had given him at his transfiguration. This time Christ was saying to us, "It is you, my brothers and sisters, with whom I am well pleased."
Asker: Christ empowered you. Christ wished well for you. Was it you who asked if this were the time God would restore the kingdom of Israel?
Second Disciple: This had been our yearning from the time we were children listening to the yearning of our parents. I realized this was the last chance to ask Jesus questions. I wanted to know everything. He had taught us much. How much more had I missed because I took for granted that he would be with us always? I had not understood what he meant by being with us always. Empowerment is powerful partly because it is scary. It means acting on your beliefs and your faith. It means accepting responsibility for those actions.
Asker: I wonder how one can recognize this empowerment today. We want evidence that God is working with us. We want confirmation and signs. We want the affirmation of "you, with whom I am well pleased."
Second Disciple: Empowerment moves beyond affirmation to being entrusted with the faith. As a disciple witnessing his ascent, I played the delicate and precarious role of keeping hope from vaporizing. I felt both a surge of enthusiasm and the charge of responsibility. We have only begun to know God as Sustainer as well as Creator. We have only begun to explore the strength of the Holy Spirit.
4. Words
Ascension
John sets the stage for Jesus' ascent: "Jesus said to Mary Magdalene, 'Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God" ' " (John 20:17).
Ascension Day, marking Christ's voyage from earth to heaven, preludes Pentecost. The moment of ascent is both Jesus' goodbye and Christ's glorification. Resurrection appearances of Christ flow into those of ascension. However, while earlier appearances focus on recognition, later connecting focuses on the fulfillment of scripture. Jesus Christ is alive and sovereign. The ascension was Christ's last earthly appearance. With it, the action of the kingdom of God moves from "will be" to "now is."
Bethany
On Palm Sunday, Jesus followed the road to Jerusalem from the east through Bethany and over the ridge of the Mount of Olives. The ascension site, this small village on the east slope of the Mount of Olives, stood about one and a half miles east of Jerusalem. Jesus and the disciples lodged at Bethany while attending temple ceremonies during the Passover. The stories about Simon the Leper and about Mary and Martha and Lazarus happened at Bethany.
Bless(ing)
Genesis 14:19--20a illustrates the three meanings of "bless" that have evolved using the form "blessed." "[King Melchizedek, a priest,] blessed [Abram] and said, 'Blessed be Abram by God Most High, maker of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!'"
Blessing is both to God and from God to humanity. The primary meaning is "to bend the knees." With the secondary use, one worships, adores, and praises God. God shows favor and goodness toward someone to reveal blessing. Persons who are blessed are fortunate or happy because God's blessing reassures them. Blessing, a sense of well--being and prosperity, is a free, undeserved gift from God.
"Blessed shall you be ..." (Deuteronomy 28:3--6) and "Happy are [you][those] who ..." (Psalm 1:1, Jeremiah 17:7, and Matthew 5:3--12) are blessing formulae. The well--liked worship benediction from Numbers 6:24--26 responds to the universal hunger to hear repeatedly the affirming words of the God/human connection: "The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace."
Forgiveness
To forgive is to remove what separates humanity from God, person from person, and person from self. By New Testament times, people had lost confidence in the capacity of humankind to repent. Their only hope lay in the possibility of God's granting both repentance and forgiveness. John the Baptist connected the prophetic call to repent and the promise of forgiveness through baptism. John said Jesus was coming to baptize with the Holy Spirit. In the kingdom of God, sinners know forgiveness and share in the life and power of God. We can forgive others. Because of this hope and yearning, the disciples asked Jesus if the time of the new age of Israel's political restoration had come.
Forty (Days)
Jesus remained with the disciples forty days until the ascension. The number forty is considered the most sacred of the universally holy number four. It was the time span of many wilderness experiences from Moses and Elijah to Jesus, from the Great Flood to Israel's wanderings and the spies in Canaan. The number forty showed a long period of endurance or existence. Forty years was the approximate length of one generation. A person of biblical times was considered fully grown at forty. Forty days often represented one day for each year.
Heaven
Most references speak of heaven as "heaven above," "toward heaven," "up to heaven," "under heaven," and "look down from heaven." "Earth" occurs in 699 biblical passages, while 410 verses contain "heaven." Heaven is the nebulous, poetic spirit "place" set apart from earth as the "home" of God: "The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord's throne is in heaven. His eyes behold, his gaze examines humankind" (Psalm 11:4).
Only the writer of Matthew used the term "kingdom of heaven." Except for the following verse, "In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near' " (Matthew 3:1--2), only Jesus used the phrase. Consider "the kingdom of heaven" as a name for the power and sovereignty of God rather than a place in which God's rule happens. Matthew quotes Jesus a dozen times as naming God "Father in heaven." The phrase occurs once in Mark. The prophets Ezra and Nehemiah say "God in heaven" and "the God of heaven."
Heaven carries two "concrete" metaphors in the Bible.2 It suggests the upper part of the cosmic ocean surrounding the earth. It also is a ceiling over the earth, that is, a membrane stretched across the cosmic ocean to prevent its water from overflowing. Descriptive images include a firmament (Genesis 1:6--8), a strip of hammered metal (Job 26:13), a curtain stretched like a tent (Isaiah 40:22 and Psalm 104:2), and a blanket enfolding God (Job 22:14).
Repentance
Repentance means turning away from sin and turning back to God. Repentance is not entirely of our doing but goes hand in hand with God's forgiveness. It includes the human dimension of faith, our response to God's power. The need for repentance is as real in today's social turmoil as it was in Jesus' day. We struggle with drugs, racism, poverty, and meaningless exhaustion of the spirit.
Restore
In the Old Testament, the verb "restore" became a technical term. It meant the political restoration of Israel by God. To restore is to reach toward what was once intended and meant to be. Universal yearning reaches toward the original purpose within history.
Right Hand (Of God)
Used figuratively, the right hand was a symbol of strength, victory, and power. One with a faulty right hand was in a threatened condition: "On another sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught, and there was a man there whose right hand was withered" (Luke 6:6). (See Miracle 5, Cycle B.) Soldiers put the robe and the crown on Jesus. Then they mocked him with "a reed in his right hand" (Matthew 27:29). Half the sixteen gospel references to the right hand are from Matthew.
Of the 125 biblical references to the right hand, 71 are in the Old Testament. When Israel asked his son Joseph to bring his boys for blessing, Israel laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim and his left hand on Manasseh. Joseph took his father's right hand, removed it from the head of his secondborn and put it on Manasseh's head. (See Genesis 48:14--17.)
Perhaps the best--known Old Testament passage is from Deutero--Isaiah: "[D]o not fear, for I am with you, do not be afraid, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my victorious right hand" (Isaiah 41:10). Besides a position of strength, the place at one's right is the seat of dignity and honor. (See also 1 Kings 2:19 and Psalms 18:35, 45:4, 48:18, 110:1, 118:16, 137:5, and 138:7.) Several of the 38 New Testament passages refer to the right--hand quotation or repeat the Psalm 110:1 verse, "The Lord says to my lord, 'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.' "
Theophilus
The writer of Luke and Acts addressed these books to Theophilus, the only person in the New Testament to whom writings were dedicated. (See Luke 1:3 and Acts 1:1.) However, Luke did not mean for Theophilus to be the exclusive reader of these writings. While both Greeks and Jews used the name, which means "friend of God," the person remains unknown. The name might have been a pseudonym protecting a real person from possible persecution.
5. Gospel Parallels
Parallels will be limited to the three lectionary passages studied in this chapter.
The Ascension/Heaven
In Acts, Luke reports after Christ told the disciples that they would receive the Holy Spirit and that they were witnesses, "they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight" (Acts 1:9b).
All three lectionary references use the passive voice when speaking of the ascension. The writer of Mark says after Jesus spoke to the disciples, he "was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God" (Mark 16:19). In the Gospel, Luke says Christ "withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven" (Luke 24:51).
Luke reports in Acts that he was recording the story of Jesus' teaching "until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen" (Acts 1:2).
Only here is reference to the angels. "While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, 'Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven'" (Acts 1:9--11).
Blessing
Luke speaks only in the Gospel about Christ's blessing the disciples: "Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them" (Luke 24:44). "While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven" (Luke 24:51). In response, Luke reports that the disciples worshiped Christ and "returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God" (Luke 24:52--53).
Empowerment by the Holy Spirit
In Acts, Luke reports that Christ tells the disciples to wait in Jerusalem "for the promise of the Father. 'This,' he said, 'is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now' " (Acts 1:4--5). Later, Christ says, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you" (Acts 1:8a).
Forty Days of Instruction
Luke alone in Acts numbers the forty--day period during which Christ "presented himself alive to [the disciples] by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God" (Acts 1:3).
The writer of Mark says, "[T]hey went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it" (Mark 16:20).
According to the Gospel of Luke, Christ "opened their minds to understand the scriptures" (Luke 24:45). Here only, the summary says that "repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem" (Luke 24:47). In Acts, Luke reports that Jesus gave these instructions "through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen" (Acts 1:2).
Fulfillment of the Law
In the Gospel, the writer of Luke speaks of these events as the necessary fulfillment of the Old Testament: "Then [Christ] said to them, 'These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you - that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled' " (Luke 24:44).
Jerusalem
Jesus orders the disciples "not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father" (Acts 1:4). In Luke, he says, "[S]o stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high" (Luke 24:49).
Restoration of the Kingdom
In Acts only, Luke reports the disciples asking Christ, "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6). Christ answers, "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you" (Acts 1:7--8a).
Right Hand of God
Only the writer of Mark says Jesus sat at the right hand of God. (See Mark 16:19.)
Proclaiming the Good News
Both Gospel references speak of the disciples' role in proclaiming the good news. "And they went out and proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it" (Mark 16:20). Christ said that "repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem" (Luke 24:47).
Witnesses
In both the Gospel named Luke and Acts, Luke refers to the disciples as witnesses. Christ said, "[Y]ou will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8b). In the Gospel, he says, "You are witnesses of these things" (Luke 24:48).
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1. For further information, see The Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible, Volume 1.
2. See The Interpreter's Dictionary Of The Bible, Volume 2.
