Ascend

Acts starts here, being addressed to Theophilus, who could have been a literal individual named Theophilus. The name; however, loosely translated into English means “one who loves God.” So this might just be written to people who love God and who have read the first book that dealt with everything Jesus began to do and teach.

But what’s that? Well, Jesus taught a whole bunch of things when He was walking around with His disciples. He taught people about having hope in the middle of bad circumstances, He taught people to allow their faith to genuinely impact their lives, He taught people to build one another up, He taught people to reconcile their relationships instead of just resolving conflict, He taught people to be deeply faithful and honest and kind. He taught people to give without publicizing it, to pray without flaunting it, and to be devoted without broadcasting it. He taught people to prioritize the things of God above the things of man, to not worry about the here and now, and to trust God’s gifts. He taught people what it really means to love, to forgive, and to believe. He taught about things beyond our understanding - like how faith takes root and about the quality of character as God judges. He taught us how to deal with sin between each other and how to be righteous in the eyes of God, how we are made holy and saved through the work of the Holy Spirit. And He began this work of restoration, healing the blind and the sick, raising the dead - giving us glimpses of the eternity He won for us on the cross. He began the work of saving people by inspiring faith in His work, His promises, and His person.

Which is something that Jesus tells the disciples to wait for here, He tells them that they will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Now is that some special kind of baptism? Is that something we get to receive or be a part of? Or is He talking about another way that the disciples are set apart? On the one hand, I think it is another way that the disciples are set apart because this happens just a little before Pentecost. On Pentecost the Holy Spirit comes down in a very visible way as tongues of fire and when the disciples start talking about Jesus everyone understands them, simultaneously, in their own languages. I don’t know about you, but the only time I’ve had a tongue of fire land on me is when my brothers and I threw a pile of pine straw on a bonfire and discovered exactly how flammable pine tar can be. And when I speak, I’ve got to pick one language at a time - I can’t say one sentence and be understood in English, Spanish, Greek, and Hebrew all at the same time. On the other hand, I think that we get to receive the Holy Spirit in our baptisms just like the disciples did. When we’re baptized, it’s not just water. The Holy Spirit is at work there giving us faith and empowering us. So I went to the notes in my handy dandy Lutheran Study Bible in hopes of getting some clarity, and it notes that “the Holy Spirit provides the superhuman strength that enables the Church to fulfill God’s commands.”

Now, I am certainly stronger than the average bear, but superhuman strength seems like the study notes might be exaggerating a little bit. Unless it’s not talking about physical strength, which makes sense given that what we’re talking about is the Holy Spirit (not the swole-y spirit). When we say superhuman, that means something that would be beyond our capabilities naturally. So maybe it actually makes perfect sense. The Holy Spirit gives us the ability to believe in God and to trust in the promise of eternal life. The Holy Spirit gives us the boldness and the spiritual strength to carry on in our lives, leading us closer and closer to the way that God has called us to live. And the Holy Spirit leads us into witnessing to others, leads us to tell the people around us about Jesus. And more than that, when we mess up our words or say the wrong thing at the wrong time, the Holy Spirit works in the heart of the person we’re talking with to overcome our shortcomings and plant the seed of faith in their hearts. All of these things are completely beyond our capabilities alone, so yeah, maybe superhuman is a good way to describe this gift of the Holy Spirit - even if we’re not getting the ability to fly.

Someone did though, Jesus flew right up into the clouds and the disciples with Him couldn’t see Him anymore. And so the disciples are standing there, staring up at the sky. Which seems entirely reasonable, right? I mean, if I walked out of those doors and started to fly under my own power, I imagine anyone who saw it would be staring. Then these two guys appear - also something worth staring at, people showing up out of no where - and ask kind of rhetorically “why do you stand looking into heaven?” They ask that question almost with this undertone of it being a ridiculous thing to do. The justification is then that Jesus is going to come in the same way that He went. Doesn’t that mean if makes even more sense to be staring at the place you saw Him disappear, if that’s how He’s coming back?

It would make perfect sense to stand there, looking at the clouds, if they were just waiting for Him to come back. It would make perfect sense for us to stand here, just sitting in worship and going through the motions, if we were just waiting for Him to come back. But that’s not all we’re doing, because of everything Jesus did and taught. We don’t just stand there staring up at the clouds, because we’re called to serve our neighbor. We don’t just stand there staring up at the clouds, because we’re called to make disciples. We don’t just stand there staring up at the clouds, because we’re called to learn and teach people about everything Jesus did and taught. We don’t just stand there staring up at the clouds, because we’ve been blessed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We don’t just stand there staring up at the clouds, because there are still people out there who don’t know that Jesus is coming back. We don’t just stand there, staring up at the clouds, because there are still people who haven’t heard the Gospel, because there are still people who would go to hell if Jesus came back right now.

We don’t just stand there staring up at the clouds, because there is still work to do. Amen.