Don't
Just Stand There
by Lieutenant Beth
White
Acts 1:1-11
A day that is often, but shouldn’t be, overlooked in the
Easter calendar is the Day of the Ascension of Jesus. This
refers to the time when Jesus returned to heaven to be with
God the Father. Now after Jesus was resurrected from the dead
on Easter Sunday, Acts 1:3 tells us
“He
appeared to the disciples over a period of forty days and
spoke about the kingdom of God”
(New International Version). During these 40 days Jesus came
and went as he revealed to the disciples the reality of his
resurrection and kingdom, taught them of the power of his Holy
Spirit, and gave them assurance of his return.[1]
At the end of these 40 days, Jesus’ work was done. His mission
to establish the Kingdom of God on earth was accomplished.
This Kingdom, built on God’s love for us, saw Jesus die to
reconcile us to God, and rise again from the grave, defeating
sin and death, and granting us eternal life. The disciples had
spent three years learning at the feet of Jesus and the
foundation had been laid for them to further his ministry. All
the i's were dotted, and t’s were crossed, and so it was now
time for Jesus to return to the Father and pass the baton on
to his disciples.
Believe it or not, this brings to mind
one of my favourite movies - Mary Poppins.[2]
She has an ascension story of her own. If you’re unfamiliar
with the story, Mary Poppins is a magical nanny who comes to
the Banks family who are missing the mark as far as a loving
family goes. Mary’s mission is to repair their relationship
through love. This involves opening their eyes to those less
fortunate around them such as Bert the Chimney Sweep and the
Bird Woman who sells breadcrumbs for tuppence a bag. By the
end of the film, the family come to love as Mary Poppins
loves. Having successfully completed her mission, Mary Poppins
ascends the skies of London with her big black umbrella in
hand.
In a similar way, Jesus came to teach us to love God and our
neighbour as He loves us. When the disciples had learnt this,
Jesus’ mission was accomplished. He was taken up before the
disciples eyes, minus the big black umbrella, and we’re told
that a cloud hid him from their sight. Now I can imagine this
would have been quite a scene to see. More so than Mary
Poppins’ and her umbrella - this only captured the attention
of Andrew the dog and Bert the Chimney sweep. Jesus, on the
other hand, had 11 grown men looking intently up into the sky,
so mesmerised or more likely shocked, that they needed two
angels to come and draw them back into the present.
Now I can empathise with the disciples just standing there in
shock. I’m not very good in situations that take me by
surprise. I often respond by doing an impression of a stunned
mullet, while other people around me spring into action. I
remember a terrible car accident outside our unit, the year
before my husband Christian and I went to college. It was
National Rugby League grand final night, and our local team
the Dragons had just won the premiership. We lived on a busy
main road and cars were driving past beeping their horns and
yahooing. Suddenly we heard an almighty crash. One car had
ploughed into the side of another and ended up wrapped around
a telegraph pole. Christian sprang into action, running
outside with no shoes on through broken glass, turning off the
ignition in the car wrapped around the pole. He ran to each
car, checking that everyone was alright and then called the
ambulance. During all of this I stood still on our balcony
peering through a slit in the timber screen with my mouth open
like a cod fish. Not very helpful at all really!
Why do you stand here looking into the sky?
And so too, the disciples stood there, staring up into the sky
after Jesus had disappeared from sight. I assume they were
partially in awe and amazement, and partially in shock and
bewilderment. Unlike Bert the Chimney Sweep, who wished Mary
Poppins farewell as she drifted into the sky and then got on
with his day, we can assume from the disciples need for two
angels to snap them back into reality, that they were staring
up into space for quite some time.
In verse 11, the angels speak “Men
of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into
the sky?”
Why ask such a question? Obviously they didn’t know what to do
next? Right?
There’s work to do
Wrong! Jesus hadn’t left the disciples without a clue of what
to do next. In fact, he’d left them clear instructions about
exactly what they were to do once he’d ascended into heaven.
In Acts 1:4 we read,
“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.”
So the first instruction was to wait in Jerusalem for the
gift.
Then in verse 8 we read, “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.”
Here we see that the gift is the Holy Spirit. Once the
disciples have received this powerful gift, the second
instruction is to be Jesus’ witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all
Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. In other
words, the disciples are to take Jesus’ message of the Kingdom
of God to everyone they meet, wherever they go.
We’ve heard this before in perhaps a more familiar passage –
The Great Commission of Matthew 28:19
“Therefore
go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”.
Jesus had clearly explained to the disciples that they were to
be empowered with the Holy Spirit and then go and make
disciples. But here they were in Acts 1:9, looking up into the
sky. Hence the angels question
“why do you stand here looking into the sky?”
Or in my paraphrase “Don’t just stand there, there’s a
job to be done. Get waiting on the Holy Spirit, and then get
witnessing!”
Distracted by what has been and what may be
Sometimes we need people like the two angels in white to come
and re-focus our attention on the job at hand. At times we
can’t carry out our work in the present because we are so
fixated on the past. We’re caught up daydreaming about what
things would be like if they’d stayed the same and so we miss
what’s going on right here and now. You can understand the
disciples would have wanted Jesus to stay with them. He had
been their teacher and guide for the last 3 years and now
there were supposed to go it alone. That would be hard. And
while change is usually hard, but always inevitable, these
verses show us that change can also be good! One of the very
reasons Jesus had to return to the Father was so he could send
the promised gift of the Holy Spirit. If Jesus had stayed, the
Spirit would not have come and the disciples couldn’t have
carried the gospel to the ends of the earth. As a result, we
probably wouldn’t be sitting here today. So too if Mary
Poppins had stayed with the Banks family, she would have got
in the way and they would have never become the loving family
that they were called to be. Nor could they have become a good
example to those around them, such as the bank workers who we
see getting out of the office to go fly a kite with the family
at the closing credits.
At times we can also be so distracted by our curiosity about
the future that we forget about our role in the present. I am
guilty of this. I spend too much time daydreaming and
pestering God about the future instead of focusing on all he
has in store for me in the present. We see this too with the
disciples in verses 6-7 where they ask Jesus,
“Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to
Israel?” Jesus responds
“It is not for you to
know the times or dates the Father has set by his own
authority.”
What Jesus is saying is that God has not revealed his
timetable to us, and it is futile for us to speculate about
it. Or to be straight down the line, mind your own business
and go about it. We are not to worry about the future but to
focus on the job at hand, which Jesus says is
“be
my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and
to the ends of the earth.”
Sometimes we need our attention called back from gazing away
from the here and now. We need to be reminded that we have a
job to do - the very same job that was given to the first
disciples. We are called to be faithful witnesses to Jesus.
With the Ascension the baton was passed from Jesus to His
followers. Today the baton lies with us and it will until we
leave this earth and pass on the baton to the next generation.
But right here and now, we are left as witnesses to Christ. We
can’t do this while we are caught up staring into the past or
gazing into the future.
Being a witness wherever you are
I wouldn’t be surprised if at this stage some of you are
groaning inwardly. Perhaps you’re thinking “Here we go again.
She’s telling me I have to do more work. I can’t even keep up
with the work I have. It’s alright for you Officers who are
paid to work in the church, but in between my own job and
family commitments how am I supposed to find time to be a
witness to others?”
First let me say, I understand! The last thing I need is
another task to do. I know I’ve used the word ‘job’ to
describe being a witness, but a better word would be ‘role’ or
‘purpose’. I don’t think Jesus is calling us to take on more
tasks, nor is he calling us all to professions in the Church.
And let me say, it’s just as easy to neglect the call to
witness when we’re employed by the Church as it is when we’re
employed in the secular world. I don’t believe it’s about
adding ‘sacred tasks’ to our ‘secular work’ but I do believe
it’s about making everything we do ‘sacred’. Jesus is calling
us to a way of living – not to a ‘to do’ list. Witnessing is
about our interactions with God and others, and the words,
thoughts and deeds that take place in those encounters, no
matter what our professions or timetables may be. Whether
we’re preaching a sermon, cutting people’s hair, or lodging
their tax returns, we can be witnesses of Jesus - living like
him, loving like him, and giving all the glory back to him.
If you do a ‘Google’ search of the most influential
Christians, you’ll find that many of them were not or are not
employed by the Church.
People like Bono – musician from U2, Bethany Hamilton –
a professional surfer; Sir John William Laing – a construction
company owner; Corrie Ten Boom – a clock maker; C.S. Lewis –
an English professor; Sir John Houghton – a scientist. These
are people who have used the gifts that God has given them to
work in a variety of different fields, but they haven’t
stopped witnessing while they’re working. They haven’t divided
the ‘sacred’ and ‘secular’. They’ve witnessed wherever they
are, whatever they’re doing, pointing others to Jesus and
giving God the glory for their triumphs.
I’d like to point out here that many
people, including myself, break into a cold sweat when they
hear words like ‘witnessing’ because we wrongly assume it
refers to ‘cold turkey’ evangelism. By that I mean walking up
to someone on the street and asking them point blank if they
believe in Jesus and would like you to lead them in the
sinner’s prayer. That might be a fun day out for Christian,
but personally I’d rather poke my eye out with a fork! The
truth is that “…only
some of God’s people have a calling to evangelism.”[3]
And we desperately need these people to live out their
calling. Not all of us can bring another to the place of faith
and decision. But all of us can and are expected to bear
faithful witness to Jesus.[4]
“Witness is a key word in the book of
Acts and is used 29 times”.[5]
What does it mean to be a witness?
It means to tell of what you know – what you have seen and
heard. Fortunately, I’ve never been called to be a witness in
court but my one of my closest friends is studying law and she
tells me that a judge is not interested in the ideas or
opinions of a witness; he or she wants to hear the facts –
what we know, what we’ve experienced, what the real story is.
And that’s something we are all capable of doing in our own
way – telling and living out our story of Jesus.[6]
The very best person to do this is you. If Christian was
called to bear witness in court, I can’t go in his place and
explain what Christian has seen or knows. The best person to
show and tell of your experience of Jesus is you.
The Holy Spirit enables us
And Jesus has not asked us to do this on our own.
He has given us a helper in the Holy Spirit, an advocate, who
is permanently within us. Just as
the disciples needed the Holy Spirit to be faithful witnesses
to Jesus, so
we too are powerless to share Jesus
without the Holy Spirit. Jesus doesn’t call us to do anything
that he hasn’t already equipped us for. We see this in verse 4
as Jesus instructs the disciples
“Do not leave
Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you
have heard me speak about”. The disciples are not sent out
until they are empowered. They received the gift of the Holy
Spirit 10 days later on the day of Pentecost. We live this
side of Pentecost and we are equipped to be a witness for
Jesus the moment he becomes Lord of our life and the Holy
Spirit makes his home in our hearts.
So what are you waiting for?
We won’t get it right every time, but God knows this and he
still sends us out to be witnesses for him. The church has had
times of both success and failure at this over the last 2000
years, and by the grace of God we are still going because God
wants to use us right here and now. There will be times when
we find ourselves gazing off into the distant past or future,
and that’s okay as long as we don’t stay there - because,
Jesus is coming back.
The angels assure us of this in Acts 1:11.
“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.”
Jesus is coming back and we don’t know when. Matthew 24:42-44
says.
“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day
your Lord will come. 43 But understand this: If the owner of
the house had known at what time of night the thief was
coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his
house be broken into. 44 So you also must be ready, because
the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect
him.
Jesus will come back at anytime. It could be today, tomorrow,
ten years from now, or many centuries from now.
Jesus will return. Will he find us gazing up into the sky? Or
will he find us living out his mission as he’s commanded us.
Jesus is coming back. Is there any greater motivation for
playing our part in being his witnesses?
Bibliography
Moretz, Matthew. 2009.
The Ascension and Mary
Poppins: Father Matthew Presents. YouTube video, 4:56.
http://youtu.be/jHRWycx6q3A
Wiersbe, Warren W. The
Wiersbe Bible Commentary: New Testament. Colorado Springs:
David C. Cook, 2007.
[1]
Warren W. Wiersbe,
The Wiersbe
Bible Commentary: New Testament (Colorado Springs:
David C. Cook, 2007), 322-323.
[2]
Mary Poppins illustration adapted
from:
Matthew Moretz, 2009. The
Ascension and Mary Poppins: Father Matthew Presents.
[YouTube video], 4:56.
http://youtu.be/jHRWycx6q3A
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