The Ascension - May 19, 2019 Sermon - Acts 1:1-11
[The 'memes' described below were found, and the link was active on May 17, 2019 here: https://www.boredpanda.com/famous-last-words/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic]
Last words. Do you ever wonder about the last words people speak? It’s interesting to note the last words of some important people from history.
Leonardo Da Vinci was a brilliant...However he was also an over-the-top perfectionist.
Meme: "i have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have"
Beethoven was one of history’s greatest composers.
Meme: "Applaud my friends. The comedy is finished"
Charlie Chaplain last words after a priest read him his rites, “May the Lord have mercy on your soul.”
Meme: Why not? After all it belongs to Him"
George Harrison, of the most famous band in the world, the Beatles, said this as his last words:
Meme: "Love one another"
Not sure if he knew he was quoting Scripture.
The brilliant composer Mozart said this in his final moment:
Meme: "The taste of death is upon my lips. I feel something that is not of this earth".
Humphrey Bogart had something else on his mind as he passed.
Meme: 'I shouuld never have switched from scoth to martinis".
Groucho Marx from the Marx Brothers, funny to the very end, said this:
Meme: Die, my dear? Why, that's the last thing I'll do!"
Henry Ward Beecher, a famous preacher in the 19th century said this:
Meme: "Now comes the mystery"
Last words matter. In some cases they reflect something, however small, about a person. In others cases, not so much.
But on rare occasions the final words of a person really do sum up their lives, even their purpose for living.
With Jesus we actually get 2 sets of last words. 2 sets of last words in the final 2 situations Jesus finds Himself in.
On the cross the last words of Jesus included:
? Forgiveness: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing. Luke 23:34. ...
? Hope: Today you will be with me in paradise. Luke 23:43. ...
? Relationships in the Body of Christ: Behold your son: behold your mother. ...
? The Cost of our Sin/Bereftness: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? ...
? Humanity: I thirst. ...
? Completion: It is finished. ...
? Trust: Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.
Then Jesus died. Dead. And was buried. Those could have been His last words. And they would have been pretty great, I think.
But then...unlike the rest of us, Jesus was raised to life. He was the firstborn among the dead.
And among His last words to His disciples were this:
Matthew 28:16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Jesus says that all authority has been given to him. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him. What does that mean?
That means that Jesus is Lord. That means that Jesus is the authority.
He is Lord of the church, He is Lord, period, to the glory of God the Father.
That means that God is the Son is the one to whom we owe our allegiance, our submission, our worship, really everything in our whole lives.
And so with that authority that was given to him by His Father, Jesus
says: “Go!”
So Jesus says “Go and make disciples of all nations“. He says what you are, make more of. Are you a disciple, a follower of Jesus? I’m asking.
If you’re a follower of Jesus, He says to you and to me: “Go and make disciples!”
You say you are followers of me. That’s awesome. Since you’re a follower of me, do what I did.
What did Jesus do? From heaven Jesus came to this planet to share of the life of God, the truth of God, the love of God, the gospel.
So he tells us to go and make disciples of all nations. Now he says that to the 11 disciples gathered. If you remember, Judas, who betrayed Jesus, shortly afterward killed himself in remorse.
So at this point in history, there were just the 11 disciples, who we also called the 11 “Apostles“.
They went from being disciples to apostles in their case, because they responded in obedience to Jesus command to go. And they went.
Due to the fact that they went, you and I are here today.
The gospel reached through the centuries all the way into your life, because these disciples obeyed and made disciples.
They obeyed, others who became disciples through their ministry obeyed, and on and on until this very moment. Never think you’re not connected to the gospel story.
You are part of this process of transmission I’ve described, because you have personally said “yes” to Jesus Who called you to follow him.
And now we get to our text today. In today’s text we see the disciples, who generally struggled to understand Jesus before His crucifixion and resurrection;
we see these same disciples, here BEFORE Pentecost (when the Holy Spirit was given) STILL struggling and stumbling to grasp what Jesus was about.
4 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. 5 For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
So here Jesus refers to what He spoke about before His suffering and resurrection, that they would be baptised with the Holy Spirit.
When Jesus was among them before his suffering on the cross, the Gospels show us clearly that they had a very hard time grasping what He was about.
They were slowly coming to realize that He was the Messiah.
They were slowly and imperfectly grasping that His purpose was to bring salvation to the human soul rather than deliverance from the political foes of the Jewish people, the Romans.
It was all slowly trickling into their consciousness. And we should cut them slack.
Rather than assuming they were kinda dumb, we should try to understand the enormity of what was happening, the massiveness of the quite strange reality that God was literally walking among them, teaching them face-to-face, dining with them. Doing life with them.
And it’s interesting to note that until that day, the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was given to the disciples, they continued to struggle in their understanding.
Have you ever struggled to understand things that you’ve found in the Gospels, in the Bible as a whole? Then together we can cut them some slack.
And so even though Jesus had risen from the dead and continued to teach them, they were still pretty confused.
What do I mean? ln verse 6 we have this: Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”
In other words, “Will you now break the Roman yoke from off our necks? Are you going to inaugurate, to begin the kingdom of the Messiah?
Their minds were still full of the idea of an earthly, temporal kingdom to be launched by Christ.
Think of it: Jerusalem, free at last from Roman domination. The disciples, expecting a kingdom along the lines of the nation of Israel in the Old Testament, want what people always seek in a visible kingdom: a chicken in every pot, full employment, a strong army to deter invaders.
No matter how many times Jesus explains the invisible kingdom and the way of the cross, it never seems to penetrate their thinking.
So throughout his ministry Jesus laboured under one great disadvantage.
The centre of his message was the kingdom of God. (Mk.1:14); but he meant one thing by the kingdom and those who listened to him meant another.
7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.
Then Jesus encourages them that a new kind of power, a very real change was going to come upon them when they receive power from the Holy Spirit.
But again, maybe not the kind of power they were hoping for.
8 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.”
It is power, but it is power to live as witnesses - to proclaim all that they had seen Jesus do and all they had heard Jesus teach.
Power to proclaim good news to the poor, freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind;
Power to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (the blessing of God)
Pretty cool, eh?
[[[ There is a whole theology here that has been controversial in the church as a whole.
Many people, including myself, believe that nowadays, when a person receives Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, that is when they receive the Holy Spirit.
That is what I believe is the best reading of the text, the whole counsel of the word of God.
My own experience, However, it actually reflects a little bit of what we see here in the text.
When I was 17 I received Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. It was a massive change because before that I had only ever been an atheist.
Because of where I came from, I had an awful lot of questions, a lot of skepticism, a whole lot of completely re-orienting, rewiring my brain to grasp this new Hope into which I’d been adopted through faith in Jesus.
While my commitment to Christ was growing over that period of time, which lasted two years, I still struggled a lot with doubts, I still struggled a lot with sin. It was a great time but a difficult time.
About two years in to this new life in Christ, I was at a church event where the speaker asked: “Does anyone here want to receive the holy spirit?“
I decided that I wanted to do that, so I went forward for prayer. There I was changed.
I prayed with great openness and with amount of faith. I was ready to receive whatever it was that God wanted to do in me.
And there I spoke in tongues for the first time, and there I somehow I was able to leave all of my doubts, all of my skepticism, all of my resistance internally.
Unfortunately, I did not manage to leave all my sin there, but that’s another story.
So yes, it literally was a massive turning point for me. My friends who were Pentecostals or charismatics explained to me that that was the moment when I received the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Again, that’s not something that I personally would ascribe to in terms of belief. Because I do believe that we receive the Holy Spirit when we come to Jesus in faith.
But I actually do believe that it is very important to remain open to God, as open to the work of God throughout our lives, as open as we were when we first received Jesus Christ as our Lord.
I also know that others, like me, have had very similar experiences.
But that’s just my own personal story. What matters for more, as we get back to the scripture today, is that]]]
This passage is the record of Jesus final words on earth before he ascended to heaven.
And then, right after this, something pretty special happened.
9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
Show Video of Ascension from The Bible AD.
You might ask, why did Jesus depart this way, so dramatically? Lots of people have wondered about that.
Well, for two reasons the Ascension of Jesus in this way was an absolute necessity.
One was that there had to be a final moment when Jesus went back to the glory which was his.
The forty days of the resurrection appearances had passed. Clearly that was a time which was unique and could not go on forever.
Just as clearly the end to that period had to be definite. It would have been odd indeed if the resurrection appearances of Jesus had just simply petered out.
The second reason is that Jesus had prepared his disciples for his eventual departure. But they still had not grasped the significance of all he had taught them. That’s an understatement.
Jesus’ ascension into the cloud may have been the final lesson for them; it showed them he was leaving the physical world and returning to the heavenly realms.
His extraordinary departure helped the disciples to see Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah of heaven.
10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? 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.”
It’s interesting that in the Orthodox Christian tradition, paintings of Jesus show Christ in such a way that you can’t tell whether He is going to heaven or coming again to earth.
This captures the profound truth that we are already living under His reign while awaiting His return.
The painting shows Christ being taken up (v. 11), coming again in like manner (v. 11), and yet continually present (Mt 28:20).
This suggests that we’re not to stand idly gazing up into heaven, but rather are called to follow Jesus in obedience to His commands until He returns.
God the Father took Jesus, in His resurrection body, from this world to His rightful place at the Father’s right hand in a cloud.
The cloud was a visible reminder that God’s glory was present as the apostles watched the ascension.
The cloud is a reminder of the divine glory. Such a cloud often appears in Scripture to reveal God’s presence (The Transfiguration for example)
This is part of the gospel. Not only did God in Jesus miraculously come to earth as a baby; not only did He gather to Himself people just like as as His disciples;
not only did teach wonderful things and challenging things about life and about God; not only did He do incredible miracles that demonstrated both His love and His power...
Not only did He then allow Himself to be arrested, tried unjustly and with extreme prejudice, beaten, battered, nailed to a cross;
not only did He suffer and die for my sins and your sins - all the sins of the world in fact- so much so that the Bible says that He who knew no sin became sin for us;
2 Corinthians 5: 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin[a] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Not only did He die a criminal’s humiliating death. And then on top of that rise from the dead, overcoming the power of death and of sin;
But together with all those things He proved to the disciples His power and glory by ascending to the place from which He came.
This is a huge narrative. A huge piece of history. For those who don’t casually and easily dismiss it all, this is life-changing reality.
This is the King of kings that we serve. The glorious Risen One Who gave it all, gave His life for you and for me. And to this, this greatest gift that God has given, Jesus calls for response.
May we respond in faith, committing our lives afresh to His gospel, to His Kingdom. May we respond by living as His redeemed children, bought with the precious blood of Christ?
Let’s pray. As we come now to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, may we have in mind your risen, ascended glory. Jesus, you are seated at the right hand of God the Father.
You are worthy of our worship, our devotion, our energies and our obedience to you call. Strengthen us with power from Your Holy Spirit to do Your will and to be Your people, Your called out people, Your Church.
In Jesus’ name we pray.
