It's About Time

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May 10, 2015 - Observing the Ascension of the Lord

Acts 1:1-11

¹In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning ²until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. ³After 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. ⁴While 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; ⁵for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

⁶So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” ⁷He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. ⁸But 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.” ⁹When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. ¹⁰While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. ¹¹They 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.”

Sermon: “It’s About Time”

A man nervously sat in the waiting room of his doctor’s office one day.  His doctor had called and asked him to come in to discuss, in person, the results from tests he’d had run (never a good sign). 

As he sat before his doctor, he felt a growing sense of dread.

She said to him, "I have got bad and worse news for you today."

The worried patient asked, "What is the bad news?"

The reply came, "You can live for one day at the most."

The frightened patient then asked, "What could possibly be worse that that?"

The doctor informed him, "I’ve been trying to contact you since yesterday afternoon."

Timing is everything. 

At the time of his ascension into heaven, Jesus’ apostles were a little time-obsessed.  He’d just spent 40 days with them after the resurrection, a month and a half in which he’d spoken entirely about the kingdom of God.  He told them that they would be filled with the Holy Spirit soon, and that they should stay put and wait on God’s promises to be revealed to them.

Like impatient children on a long car ride they asked,

“Are we there yet?”

They didn’t use those exact words, of course.  They asked the question everyone was thinking, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”  Never mind that Jesus had just spent forty days talking about the kingdom of heaven; these apostles were still expecting a literal Messianic kingdom, like those of the Old Testament, one centered in Israel.  But Jesus’ kingdom was never meant to fit in that one place.  And he never came to be a political leader to establish an earthly nation.

Gina Stewart, Pastor of Christ Missionary Baptist Church in Memphis, TN, reminds us that, “Jesus does not reprove the apostles for their heightened anticipation, or their confidence (though misinformed) in the biblical promises. The second coming, or Parousia, brings the ultimate closure to the story of the kingdom and the gospel. But that is not to be the focus of the disciples’ attention. Instead, Jesus shifts the emphasis from speculation about the future to demonstration and transformation of the present. God’s promise to revitalize Israel is not a matter of when (v. 7), but how (v. 8).”

And so, like a patient travel companion on a long road trip, Jesus tells those anxious apostles, “It’s not for you to know the timetable God works in.  But you can know this: Israel was never a destination, but a beginning.  From Jerusalem, you will receive the Holy Spirit and be my witnesses in Judea and Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth.”

And those are the last words we have quoted from Jesus in our scriptures.  “To the ends of the earth.”  These people of Israel are restored not as an earthly kingdom, but a heavenly kingdom whose borders are time itself and whose only ruler is God. 

That’s a lot to take in, y’all.  And on top of that, then Jesus was ascended up into heaven.  It’s no wonder those apostles just stared up into the sky, confused.  They might have stayed there all day, too, with cricks in their necks, if it weren’t for two angelic figures stating the obvious, “Hey guys, why are you looking up into heaven?  Jesus will come back in the same way.”  Perhaps it’s like saying a watched pot never boils.  A watched Jesus never comes again!

Jesus never told his followers to stare into the clouds, divining when he’d return (though so often we Christians try to calculate the second coming today).  He never actually wanted us to fixate on heaven – when we go there is not up to us.  He wanted – and wants – his followers to fixate on the kingdom of heaven.  The peaceable reality of God breaking into this world in the mystery of already-and not-yet, to transform it with grace. 

We can’t participate in the kingdom of God with our heads in the clouds all the time.  We have to actively wait for it.  That means instead of staring into heaven we share heaven here on earth, even as we eagerly anticipate the fullness of Christ coming again.  We wait by being witnesses, to the ends of the earth, fulfilling those last words of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit.

And, as we learned from that poor fella in the doctor’s office, timing is everything.  You can’t be a witness yesterday.  You can’t be a witness tomorrow.  You can only be a witness today.  These 24 hours with which you can be bearers of the kingdom of God. 

The past is, well, passed.  Our previous triumphs, our mistakes, our joys and our sorrows, shape reality today.  But they are only preserved in memory.  We cannot relive them.

And the future, well, that is in God’s hands.  We can meticulously plan, we can map out the next week, month, year, decade, but that won’t give us any more control over what mystery may unfold for us.  The future is not-yet.  We cannot live it now.

But today – today is enough.  We can either stare into heaven, like those apostles first did, desperate to experience Jesus in the ways we have before, and therefore miss the way he moves and lives now, or we can seek his kingdom first.  We can pray, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” and actually mean it. 

We can show what happens when the kingdom of heaven breaks into this world: when people know forgiveness, when reconciliation is possible, when bodies are cared for just as much as souls, when justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a never-failing stream, when we see the face of God in every face we meet.

We can live our lives as if we only had 24 hours left, and make them count, being a part of God’s kingdom which overturns all lesser earthly kingdoms with a reign of grace and peace.  What will it be?  Staring into heaven or sharing the kingdom of heaven on earth?

Imagine what could be done if we would live, not with the backward pull of the past or the forward tug of the future, but with the urgent hope of today.  Imagine what sort of witnesses we could be! 

Jesus is waiting on us, even as we wait on him.  And as we let go of a past we can’t change and a future we can’t control, and live in the present as witnesses to the kingdom of God in the here and now, I imagine Jesus will say one thing to us:

 “It’s about time.”  Alleluia!  Amen.