What is Jesus doing there/here? - Acts 1:9-11

The Vanishing Man

The Vanishing Man trick is one of the most popular tricks in history. Magicians have been vanishing on stage for at least 200 years. Houdini was famous, not just for his fantastic escapes from water cylinders, but for making elephants disappear. David Copperfield has made a plane disappear… the Statue of LIberty disappear. One famous legend is that of a magician Hugo Cedar, who invited a crowd out to London Bridge. Afteer standing in front of the crowd for a long period of time, Cedar disappeared from the bridge, never to be seen again. That is legend, but it is legend because we are fascinated with the vanishing acts of magicians. They cause us to question what is real. We cannot trust our eyes or our ears. It also taps into a very human desire to have the ability to disappear.

Where’s Jesus?

What we’ve read today is anything but a disappearing act. It reads like a vanishing act. Jesus here one moment, up in a cloud and gone the next. And his best friends are in a daze. Again. Jesus ascended into heaven. What does that mean? This event in Jesus' life tends to be one of the most underrated events in Jesus life. It's only mentioned a couple of times, and the details are not much. But what we do have is a glimpse into what it means to be church. And it certainly answers the question, Where's Jesus?

Our text this morning is from a letter that a doctor, a physician who was well known to the believers in the first century. His name is Dr. Luke. And Dr. Luke wrote a two-volume story of Jesus and his best friends. The first volume is what we call the Book of Luke. It is an account of Jesus' life. The second volume is what we call the Book of Acts. That's also an account of Jesus' life, but with a twist… the life of Jesus as it is lived out among his best friends. This two volume set was written by Dr Luke to a man named Theophilus, and Luke says he is writing to Theophilus and his church gathering so that they can be certain that the things they have been told and believed are true.

And they have questions. It's been 20-30 years or so since Jesus rose from the dead. But they know they've never seen Jesus. What happened to Jesus? Where's Jesus?

Back to the Father

If you're one of Jesus’ best friends, though, the past 40 days have been a roller coaster. You've seen your best friend get arrested, falsely accused, falsely convicted, and then crucified. Then you saw him alive after he rose from the dead. And you have this sense that things will never be the same. It's easy to run right through the fact that Jesus spends a lot of time toward the end of his ministry talking about going back to His Father. Read John’s biography sometime and circle the number of times between chapters 13-17 how many times Jesus talks about going back to his Father. It is a running theme.

Here in Acts 1, that time has arrived. Jesus has come to save His people from their sins. And now he has done that. It’s time to go back to the Father. And that’s what happens:

Acts 1:9 Jesus was taken up as they were watching, and a cloud took him out of their sight.

Jesus is standing there one minute talking with his disciples and the next minute, he is seemingly taken by a cloud into the sky and out of their sight. He disappears. The ole vanishing act… complete with a cloud that makes everything mysterious. And least that's the way we tend to read it. This seems so anti-climactic. In fact, that's the way this scene is portrayed in paintings and artwork. Jesus rises with a cloud around him and they all gawk at the weird sight of him going away.

And then.. two guys show up and say, yep, he's gone, but guess what? Someday he's coming back and he's going to come back in a cloud just like he left.

In fact, that tends to be the main point we get from this. Hey, Jesus coming back in a cloud. Just wait for it. He's coming in a cloud. Point made. That's it. Part of the problem here is that we've missed what the text is actually saying. There's nothing about this that is normal. Not only is this not normal, this is shockingly out of this world. This is a stunner. There's glory here.. absolutely brilliant glory. There is an other-worldly aspect to this that these disciples aren't just stunned, they are moved, they are motivated, they are ready to take on the world.

Jesus’ exaltation

There's more than meets the eye here, stuff that Luke wants Theophilus to see. First:

Jesus was taken up.

Jesus doesn't simply rise on his own. This cloud takes him out of their sight. The language of being "taken up" has only one other usage in the Bible.. that's in the Old Testament. These are the same words used to describe the prophet Elijah hundreds of years before being taken up with a glorious chariot from heaven. Elijah disappears just like Jesus. As soon as Luke's audience hears the words, Jesus was taken up, this rising of Jesus into heaven is no longer just a miracle involving creation. This is something that is fantastically glorious and other-worldly. Just as God's glory came down and whisked Elijah away in a chariot of fire, Jesus is taken in a cloud. Second,

There are two men in white clothes.

Then there are the two men in white clothes. Where have we seen these two men before? We saw them in radiant brilliance at the resurrection, their robes and their hair white as lightning. We've seen them on a Bethlehem countryside showing up to shepherds and announcing the birth of the very one who is taken up in a cloud. Angels. There's more going on here than simply Jesus going up in a cloud and out of their sight. He was taken up just like Elijah in glory. And there are angels.

Which forces us then to take another look at that cloud. If he's taken up like Elijah and there are angels showing up, then

This isn't just another cloud. This is the very glory cloud of the Old Testament

This is the glory cloud that hung over the Tabernacle as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire at night. The very cloud that engulfed Mt Sinai in fire and lightning and was God's presence on earth in the Tabernacle.. causing Moses' face to shine so brilliantly he had to wear a veil. This is the glory cloud of God's presence on earth. In fact, when Luke here says Jesus was taken up, he goes on to say that "the cloud took Jesus out of their sight." That's not just any cloud. That's a cloud of glory that carries Jesus just like the chariot of fire carried Elijah.

Wherever that glory cloud is, there is heaven itself. The disciples aren't simply looking into any sky.

The disciples are gazing “into heaven” itself.

They were gazing “into heaven.” Again, those pictures we grew up with where Jesus is in a cloud and he just rises into the sky with the disciples looking on, don't really convey what the text is actually saying. Four times the phrase "into heaven" is used.

They were "gazing into heaven."

They were "looking up into heaven."

Jesus was taken "into heaven."

They saw him go "into heaven."

Taken up like Elijah. Announced by angels. Taken by a cloud of glory. Taken into heaven. This isn't just the sky we are talking about. We are talking about heaven where God resides, where God's glory is brilliant, where the Son sits at the right hand of His Father. That heaven. The disciples are gazing into another world. They are given a glimpse of Jesus in all of his glory. They are witnesses that Jesus ascends to his throneroom in heaven where he rules and reigns over all things. This is Christ's coronation day. This is his enthronement.

St. Peter says as much in a great sermon about one week later.. Peter tells the crowd of thousands that

"Jesus has been exalted to the right hand of God." (Acts 2:33)

How did Peter know? Because Peter and the others saw it happen. They were witnesses of Jesus being crowned with glory and honor. They saw Jesus receive from his father the kingdoms promised in the Old Testament.

Where is Jesus?

So… where is Jesus? Jesus is in heaven. Jesus is where God dwells in all of his brilliant glory. He has taken his rightful place as the king over the kingdoms of the world. But what Peter says is also in our creed. Jesus isn’t just in heaven. Jesus has been

“exalted to the right hand of God.”

The “right hand of the Father” is another way of saying that God’s rule, God’s reign, and God’s power fill the entire world. Right hand is another way of saying the rule and reign of God in power over all things. God is everywhere. God is all powerful. God is all knowing all of the time. And now Jesus is there participating with his father in that power over all things. Jesus participates in the omnipresent governance and dominion of God over all things everywhere. There’s no place you can go where Jesus is not reigning with full sovereignty?

Jesus still has a physical body. He is still in heaven. But he is also here. That physical body is unlike anything we know. He’s at the right hand of the Father, wherever that right hand is exercising rule and reign… and that means he is everywhere. We can’t explain it. We don’t know how that happens, but we affirm it to be true here every Sunday.

In the same way

This event is sorely misunderstood. There is the promise of Jesus’ return here.

Acts 1:11 The two angels said, “This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come in the same way that you have seen him going into heaven.”

If we get what happened when Jesus is taken up wrong, we’re sure to get this wrong. We focus on “in the same way”. Jesus is coming back in a cloud. That’s the story I grew up with. That’s not the point here. Jesus left in the glory cloud.. into God’s dwelling. When Jesus returns, he’s bringing heaven with him. That’s Jesus coming “in the same way”.

Jesus said this would happen right before he died:

Matthew 24:30 “All the peoples of the earth will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

That’s the same way Jesus went into heaven. The clouds of heaven.. not the clouds of the sky… with power and great glory. Heaven itself will descend to earth, just like it was in the original Garden of Eden.

What is Jesus doing there/here?

How is Jesus with us this morning? Is it symbolic? Is it mystic? Is it literal? The great missionary Paul said that

Ephesians 4:10 The One who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens, to fill all things.

That verse says it all. Jesus goes to heaven so that he can be everywhere, ruling all things. There’s nothing that Jesus does not have control of. That’s disconcerting because if Jesus is in control and all things are under his rule and reign, why do bad things happen? Why is there still sin in the world? Jesus rules and reigns from the right hand of the Father on His throne. Nothing escapes his notice. Someday, Jesus will bring an end to sin and death. Until then you can rest knowing that you are in his hands.

But there’s also this:

Because Jesus is everywhere, Jesus is with you. Jesus is here with us.

That’s the great plot twist… Jesus leaves earth so that he can stay. That’s the irony of our text today. The disciples watch Jesus go into heaven and when they do, they realize that Jesus isn’t distant at all. They were able to gaze into heaven while standing on the ground. Heaven has come near in Jesus. By going into heaven, by taking humanity into heaven, Jesus is no longer relegated to being only one place and one time… Jesus is now able to be anywhere and everywhere at any time. So that he can be with you at all times. FOR YOU.

And because Jesus is always with us, the ascension means that Jesus is always on mission through us. Whenever we are serving our neighbors, we are on mission with Jesus and Jesus is continuing his mission through us. The ascension is how Christ’s body on earth, the church becomes His hands and his feet. We are His witnesses, just as He promised in Acts. You see, that Promise Jesus made just before the cloud came to take him up is being fulfilled by Jesus. Jesus promised that his followers would be his witnesses and he would use his followers to connect many, many people to himself.

Jesus is on mission to save people from their sins. And he is doing it through us. His community. It is here he lives and resides as the risen and exalted King. Where’s Jesus? He’s in heaven. He’s here. All of the time. For me. And for you.

Let’s pray.

The Table

One of the age old questions is “how is Jesus really present here at the table?” The ascension. Because of the ascension into heaven, Jesus is truly present. filling all things, bringing all things to their fullest and intended meaning. Jesus is wherever the church is. Jesus is wherever the church is Proclaiming His Word and feeding His people from His Table. That’s where Jesus is. We often say, Jesus will be here. He promised. He promised that very moment he was taken up in that glory cloud for me and for you. Heaven is here on earth, right here, right now at This Table. This is Jesus for you.

Benediction

Numbers 6:24–26 May the Lord bless you and protect you;

may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;

may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.