The passage we just read is sandwiched between two of God’s greatest actions in the Bible. The majestic ascension of Jesus Christ into heaven and Pentecost Sunday. From there, the book of Acts encompasses nearly 30 years of history -- We see everything from transformational preaching and miracles to jailbreaks, arrests, and shipwrecks.
Our passage appears to be at first mere filling in the middle. In comparison to the ascension or Pentecost, our passage comes off vanilla plain considering the Holy Spirit hasn’t come yet. There’s nothing particularly eyebrow raising without all the comparable God-driven actions taking place. Yet Luke, through the Spirit’s inspiration thought it warranted the space given. So, what might we be missing?
Reading over the text again and again, I realized I was asking the wrong question. Rather than to ask what might we be missing – the better question to ask of the text is WHO is missing!
For the first time of significant length, Jesus Christ is physically missing. We can’t understate the impact on this group. Jesus’ physical absence from the apostles is The defining moment in their lives and the lives of the church.
But now? They can’t believe what they are seeing as they look up into the sky. Jesus rises into the air and disappears into the clouds like we said at Cadets and GEMS – a child accidentally letting go of a balloon and carried away. The two men in white – messengers of God snap them out of the mesmerizing scene. It’s as if they were saying, why do you stand here looking up to the heavens? Jesus will come back in the same way he departed. So quit slacking! Don’t dawdle! There is work to be done. What is that work? Beyond the obvious Great Commission, there is more to it than that.
Berkhof lays it out for us. He writes, “The apostles had the special task of building on the foundation for the Church of all ages.” These verses that at first appear so ordinary marks the start of that important work. What takes place here sets up a framework that has shaped churches ever since including ours. No wonder Luke gives this much space to the events taking place between the ascension and Pentecost. It begins with a U-turn from the Mount of Olives back to Jerusalem.
Verse 12: “Then they returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk from the city.” Given Acts 1:3 indicates the Ascension took place 40 days after the resurrection Jesus, the Ascension took place by count of days on a Thursday. It’s not clear why Luke highlighted the distance as a Sabbath Day’s walk. Roughly a half mile in length, The Sabbath’s Day walk was the maximum number of steps, a faithful Jew could walk on the Sabbath. Exceed that amount and you were breaking the Sabbath. Some presume it was such a familiar measurement that Luke simply included it as a factoid. Now that his accusers thought Jesus was out of the picture, others presume Luke is foreshadowing the future accusations the apostles would be targeted with in Jesus’s place.
Regardless, the apostles are demonstrating obedience – heeding Jesus’ earlier command to remain together in Jerusalem until the Spirit came. No one threw in the towel and gave up. They waited expectantly for the Spirit to come. Would that when we gather, that we would carry within us a similar expectation to see what God will do next through us as his church! Do you and I assemble here with that sort of expectation? Or do we assemble presuming the best days are behind us?
In theological terms, the issue highlighted is the importance of human agency by which God accomplishes will through the body of Christ on earth. Human agency is about what God wants over and above what pleases us. With Christ as head, the body of Christ are the agents by which God makes disciples and grows us into greater maturity in Christ – to bring him glory. This isn’t the start of a new church or the birthday of the church – otherwise we disregard the faithful Old Testament witness. As far as the New Testament is concerned – the shift from Old to New starts in verse 13 with the naming of the eleven apostles’
the exception being Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus. Of particular importance to us first of all is what transpires in verse 14. “They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.” Three items worth highlighting.
The first is the ministry prayer. “They all joined together constantly in prayer.” Just as they waited expectantly, now they pray with similar expectation together setting up the pattern for congregational prayer we pray today. To submit ourselves to God’s human agency requires us to seek his purpose and direction and resources to do what he wants us to do.
The second marked change from temple worship – women of faith were welcomed participants. Previous to this the men and the older boys worshiped separately from the women and children. Families didn’t sit together as we do now. Some of the women who were patrons to Jesus’ ministry now continue their support to the apostles. Their presence and support and giftedness are crucial to the success of the Gospel mission.
Finally, we have additional cause for great joy that among the believers are Jesus’ brothers. These same brothers questioned Jesus’ sanity and tried to put him under house protection. To them he was just an annoying big brother whose shoes they could never fill. But now - given that one of Jesus’ post resurrection appearances was to his brother James, their now being present with mother Mary marks a sharp reversal from their earlier lack of faith.
How wrong we were that there wasn’t much to mine out of this passage – but this is just the start.
Jump ahead to verse 15 where Luke reports this group numbered about 120 in number. That’s not a very large group to bring the Gospel to all nations – Yet consider it over the centuries – through God’s human agency -- these 120 initial believers, the church of Jesus Christ has grown immensely to include millions upon millions of believers. If we were privy to the actual details that God knows, each believer in Christ could trace their own salvation path to one of these first 120 prayer warriors for the church. God’s work of human agency continues today through us and other congregations just as with those first 120.
The remaining 12 verses of the chapter, highlights the means by which Judah Iscariot’s vacant spot is filled. That’s a lot of scroll space for Luke to make room for. But it is again a prime example of God at work through human agency - especially considering the Spirit had not yet come!
What quickly becomes clear is out of the eleven, Peter dominates the scene. On the one hand that comes as little surprise – yet look closer and we find a very different Peter. What we see of him in Acts 1 is nothing like the foot in mouth diseased Peter we first knew - constantly saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Through Peter’s speech, three more nuggets can be gleaned that are valuable to the church today.
First, Peter equates the Old Testament Scripture as authoritative for the church. Verse 16 – “Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through the mouth of David concerning Judas…” From the get-go, we see the apostles apply the lessons Jesus taught them. –As Abraham Kuyper observes, “The apostles took the lessons to heart recognizing the Word of God in Scripture is clothed with Divine authority.” And we carry that close to our hearts today.
Second, Peter grieves Judas’s betrayal of Jesus in a way that emphasizes accountability for today’s office bearers. Judas was held accountable for his actions even though Jesus’ arrest led to Jesus fulfillment of God’s will for the sake of our salvation. You can’t help but hear the hurt when Peter says in verse 17 - he was one of our number and shared in this ministry. To me those words reveal a rawness that occurs for leaders who betray their roles today.
Peter highlights God’s judgement for what Judas did using verses from two of David’s imprecatory Psalms – Psalms 69 and 109. In place of David calling on God to avenge his enemies, Peter sees these verses as prophecies against Judas. It’s a very sobering moment for Peter to say these words. For the sake of his readers, Luke offers further gruesome details about Judas’s remains, the 30 shekels of silver Judas tried returning, and the temple leaders using this blood money to buy this land for a foreigners cemetery.
Third, in a prelude to the offices that would follow, Peter lays out the qualifications for the role of an apostle – one that no longer exists today. As eye witnesses to Jesus, they must have been with Jesus from the time of his baptism until his ascension. AND they must have been present for one of Jesus’ post resurrection appearances. By definition, that means Judas was never an apostle but only a failed disciple. To fulfill the prophecy, a 12th apostle was needed – one as Jesus spoke of twice in Luke to represent the original twelve tribes of Israel.
I said earlier this was a prelude to the offices of elder and deacon and pastor that follow today. Notice carefully in our text, the apostles didn’t hand pick their replacement – the members of the church – the 120 weighed in to help decide who would be considered for nomination with a final selection by lot preceded by prayer like we do today. Two names are proposed – Joseph called Barsabbas and Matthias also known as Justus.
Following a prayer for God to make his selection clear – the lot falls to Matthias. His name never appears again in the Bible. In extra-biblical literature - two church historians identity him as an early martyr for the faith - one says he was stoned in Jerusalem by a Jewish mob – the other says he died on the mission field in Eastern Africa.
Regardless -- we get a sense once more of God’s work of human agency in Christ’s physical absence that God was about to do great things through them. For the apostles and the remaining 120 believers only one more item on their checklist is missing – the Spirit still to come on Pentecost.
