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New Covenant, 12 May 2024 (from 1 June 2014)

 Acts 1

In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning 2 until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. 3 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. 4 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; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” 6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. 8 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.” 9 When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. 11 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.”

Hands up if you’ve ever has this dream:

You discover the test is in ten minutes and you forgot to study.

You can’t find the exam room, or the room has changed.

You show up for the exam, but realize you forgot to take the course.

You arrive at church in the dead of winter, and you forgot your shoes, so you’re going to need to preach in snowy boots or your sock feet (okay that’s mine: a dream I had several times—and then it happened!)

A few weeks into her first semester here, Carmen casually handed me her mid-term Bible exam, saying "take this exam and tell me what you think.”  You know this is one of my worst nightmares, right?  I passed.  Barely.

You could argue that those fortunate (and foolish) enough to take on the role of pastor live a version of the exam nightmare everyday.  It's one of the value-added services we offer in the church—a willingness to answer all questions of a religious nature.  But sometimes, when we get into the random and obscure, suddenly I’m back in my sock feet. 

Let me give you some examples.  At least every year or two someone will ask me the difference between a disciple and an apostle.  (Now I can say, ‘I dunno, ask Mitchell—he’s the Bible guy’)  Rarely does an Advent go by without someone quizzing me on the names of the three wise men (not biblical, but by tradition: Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar).  And then there was the day my brother called up to say, ‘hey, what’s the deal with Ascension Day?’

As obscure religious questions go, he may have been going after some sort of prize.  Or maybe not. It turns out Andrew was on his way to France to see his boss, and was having some trouble reaching anyone over there, as they were busy enjoying an Ascension Day holiday weekend.

“C’est un bon pays [set-an-bon-pay-ee],” I said in my best cereal-box French, confirming that “this is a good country.”  I further explained that truly civilized countries like France mark all the obscure religious days.  Name another country that enjoys a holiday on Good Friday, Easter Monday, Whit Monday, Ascension Day AND Assumption Day, All Saints’ Day and the Feast of Stephen.  Add in a day to celebrate storming the Bastille, and you may be close to heaven on earth.

Now I’m not saying we might be better off if the French had won the French and Indian War, but by accident of birth or careless migration, we seem to have lost the statutory holiday lottery.  So I might say ‘happy belated Ascension Day’ to you, but without the long weekend to go with it, it just sounds cruel.

Poor Andrew’s question remains unanswered, and perhaps you too are wondering too: ‘What’s the deal with Ascension Day?‘  Let’s take a look.

“Soon,” Jesus said, “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and beyond, to the ends of the earth.”  After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. 

And that’s about it.  Forty days after Easter is Ascension, fifty days after Easter is Pentecost (the French take the next day as a holiday) and then it’s barely a month to Bastille Day.  Immigration forms can be found online.

And St. Luke, who is writing the Acts of the Apostles, must achieve a number of things in this first chapter of his sequel, since next Sunday it’s on to Acts 2 and the wind and fire of Pentecost.  Acts 1 opens with a segue from Luke to Acts, some last words, the Ascension, a brief and bloody description of what happened to Judas, and a special meeting to replace him. The lot fell to Matthias, and the eleven were twelve once more.

There are a few things to note in this important summary chapter, this bridge from the Gospels to the rest of the Christian story.  The first is a seemingly innocuous little verse that appears at the beginning of the passage we heard this morning.  There, as Luke sets the scene, he says ‘After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive.  He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.’

At first glance, this may seem unsurprising.  While still with the twelve, Jesus spoke mostly in parables, and parables are always about the Kingdom of God.  So if we track Jesus—in life, in death, in life beyond death—the topic is the same.  Jesus only wants to talk about the Kingdom of God.

Surprisingly, this insight was more-or-less lost to the church for several centuries.  Only in the nineteenth century did scholars and preachers rediscover this single-minded focus on the Kingdom of God, having been waylaid by questions of belief, practice, personal piety and national politics.  Only in the period aptly named ‘the quest for the historical Jesus‘ did this emphasis on the Kingdom come.

The second noteworthy thing in this short passage is the appearance of angels, visitors who offer some much-needed advice. Their appearance is short and subtle—and almost easy to miss—but an important part of the story. 

Just then he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky?” 

It’s a good question.  But it’s the next thing said that really gets their attention.  Just as they return their gaze to the earth and these strange men in white, they receive an important message.  ‘You know he’s coming back,’ the angels say, ‘the same way he left.‘ 

Now this might have come as a bit of a shock to the group, only recently accustomed to the fact that Jesus was not dead, only recently accustomed to the fact that he would ascend to God, and now learning (perhaps again) that he will be back. 

I say ‘perhaps again’ because Jesus did mention that he would return on the clouds, with power and glory, but we don’t know if they understood (Matthew 24).  Even in the midst of comforting his disciples, in that tender passage in the 14th chapter of John he says ‘and if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also.‘ Could they hear this, in the midst of the passion?  Perhaps not.

And this was the second great discovery of those nineteenth-century theologians, or perhaps we should say re-discovery: that the promise of return was a central theme of the early church, and a central theme for Jesus—a theme that seemed to be overtaken by events.  Some would argue that the promise of return was so immediate (“this generation will certainly not pass away until these things have happened”) that when it failed to happen it moved to the back burner.  Yet the promise remained, and for the early church, the promise of return was as real as looking up at the clouds passing overhead.

I’m reminded of one of those five dollar words that comes in handy at a moment like this, a moment that we’re looking in our Bibles and trying to connect the dots.  The word is intertextuality, the practice where we allow one passage or idea to suggest another passage or idea, in scripture or maybe beyond the scriptures too. 

In this case, talking about the Kingdom of God, and talking about Jesus' return in glory, we might be reminded of some other famous words that suddenly get a little more context: “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” 

Jesus has them (and us) reciting a prayer with his entire program embedded in a single line.  ‘Thy Kingdom come’ is both the persistent Kingdom message of the parables and the abiding hope of his imminent return.  A single line that will guide the early church as they hold things in common, care for widows and orphans, preach the good news, and wait with one eye on the sky. 

***

Wait with one eye on the sky.  This project of waiting, this longing for God’s Kingdom, is based on the assumption that there is something more than what we can see here.  It hinges on the belief that the sum of human experience is not limited to the years we are given, or the tangible things that surround us.  It hinges on the same impulse that infuses all the great religions: that meaning exists beyond our limited understanding, and the quest for meaning is as natural as breathing.     

I’m currently in the middle of Mark Gregory Pegg’s excellent history of the Middle Ages entitled Beatrice’s Last Smile.  The book is unique in that he puts religion at the centre of the story, stepping away from a recent trend in the other direction.  Having said all that, it’s not a religious book, simply a book that places religion at the centre of what is often called “the age of faith.” 

This idea of waiting with one eye on the sky reminded me of a well-known story recounted in the book, the story of the conversion of Northumbria, a kingdom in the north of what we now call England.  The King of Northumbria, Edwin, had more or less decided that his kingdom would embrace the new faith and accept baptism (for himself, and the leading families).  But he wanted to convince them first, so he convened a meeting and allowed his noblemen to debate the matter.  I say “debate,” but I think it’s safe to assume that everyone present knew which way the king was leaning.  

Various noblemen spoke for and against the old gods, and finally an unnamed speaker stood to share a parable:

 

When we compare the present life of man on earth with that time of which we have no knowledge, it seems to me like the swift flight of a single sparrow through the banqueting-hall where you are sitting at dinner on a winter's day with your ealdormen and thegns. In the midst there is a comforting fire to warm the hall; outside, the storms of winter rain or snow are raging.

The sparrow flies swiftly in through one door of the hall, and out through another. While he is inside, he is safe from the winter storms; but after a few moments of comfort, he vanishes from sight into the wintry world from which he came. Even so, man appears on earth for a little while; but of what went before this life or what follows, we know nothing. Therefore, if this new teaching has brought any more certain knowledge, it seems only right we should follow it.

I guess I’m astounded how contemporary this supposed summary of life on earth sounds, published some 1,300 years ago by the Venerable Bede.  This idea that ‘you live and then you die and that’s all there is’ is more popular than ever, driven by a loss of faith and (and a very appropriate) emphasis on caring about the world we know.  

So how did we get here?  I think it’s safe to say that too much talk of heaven and hell led people away from a place that was meant to be about love and mercy.  It was a former Baptist who introduced me to the idea of the “fruit inspector,” busy deciding who was worthy and who was less worthy amid all this talk of heaven and hell.  Add to that entire traditions dedicated to the end of the world, sending the not-so-subtle message that this world no longer matters.  

So let me take you back to that intertextual link, the connection between Ascension Sunday and the Lord’s Prayer.  When Jesus said “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” he wasn’t talking about the end of all things—he was talking about a union between heaven and earth.  Bishop and theologian NT Wright put it this way when he said: “The God who made heaven and earth intends to draw them together at the last.”  Anyone who argues that this world will someday no longer matter has missed the point of the prayer.  “Thy Kingdom come” is a summary of Jesus’ entire project—the abiding hope that God’s realm and our realm may someday become one.  

This, then, is the certain knowledge that an unnamed sage alluded to 1,300 years ago: that the warmth of that solitary flight through the great hall will become eternal, the known and the unknown drawn together to reveal God’s Kingdom.  We can’t help but look up, trusting that Jesus will return the same way he left: preaching the Kingdom, calling disciples, seeking the lost, and extending love and mercy to everyone he meets.  

The Kingdom will come, and the Kingdom's work will be done, and as we will look up longingly, we remember all the things we have to do here.  We live in that in-between place, that liminal space between future hope and the important work God has set before us.  May we attend to both, with God’s help, Amen.

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 8:09 AM