JAC Online

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.