Succession Ascension

Text: Acts 1:1-11 May 20, 2007

Welcome to Part 2 of “Jesus and His Ministry,” brought to you by Luke the Evangelist. In the last episode, we saw Jesus returning to the disciples after his tragic execution. He spent forty days with them, showing that he had been raised from the dead, talking to them, eating with them, reminding them that it was he who had gathered them, and giving them each a new commission and a new title: Apostle.

Thus begins, more or less, the book of Acts, the second part of a two-volume saga written by Luke about Jesus and his ministry on earth, volume one being Luke’s Gospel itself. Acts opens with this recap of Jesus’ actions after his resurrection. But it really assumes that you already know the story of the life of Jesus, that you’ve seen the earlier episodes of this show and are familiar with the characters and what Jesus did and said. But whereas for the other Gospel writers, the story is over, for Luke it is about to enter a whole new season. In the episodes ahead we’ll hear about the life of early Christians and the early church. But it is the same show, Jesus and His Ministry.

In the other three Gospels—Mark, Matthew, and John—there is no ascension event, and the end of the story of the life of Jesus is pretty much the end of the story. But if the story had ended there it would be unlikely that we would be sitting here. The disciples did not just disperse and go about their pre-Jesus business. Instead, they became apostles, speaking and acting as a result of their experience with Jesus, and bringing that experience into the lives of others who did not know Jesus face to face. And eventually into our lives.

The ascension of Jesus is like the hinge in Luke’s rendition of the story of Jesus and his followers. It appears in brief mention in the last verses of Luke (which we just heard) and slightly more fully in the first chapter of Acts. That’s because, though it marks the end of Jesus physical presence on the earth (which is the subject of the Gospel of Luke), it marks even more the beginning of the ministry of Jesus through the church (which is the subject of the book of Acts). The question that Acts addresses is: will the new age that Jesus proclaimed be able to continue now that Jesus is not the physically present charismatic and divine leader of his disciples?

It is a question of succession that all founding leaders face. When they are gone, will the enterprise flourish? The ascension of Jesus is not the first succession/ascension story in the Bible. There are two precedents: Moses and Elijah. Moses, the prophet-like-which-there-was-no-other, who led the people of Israel out of slavery, was by traditional stories carried up to heaven, and his lieutenant Joshua became Israel’s leader. Elijah, the great prophet, ascended in a whirlwind to heaven, and his associate and student Elisha took over his job. It was Moses and Elijah who stood with Jesus on the mountain when Jesus was transfigured. The three of them spoke together. Maybe they were discussing strategy. Some readers think that the two men dressed in white who speak to the disciples after Jesus ascends in a cloud are meant to be Moses and Elijah.

All these ascension stories are about the transfer of power. Moses to Joshua. Elijah to Elisha. Jesus to … ? Jesus to whom? Jesus not to another prophet nor to Peter, his buddy on whom the church will stand. In one sense, Jesus transfers his power to the Holy Spirit. But the Spirit’s job here is different from Joshua and Elisha. The Spirit empowers the disciples and guides them. You will be baptized by the Spirit, Jesus says. (Which baptism we’ll hear about next week at Pentecost.) You will receive a power from the Holy Spirit, he says. Jesus transfers his prophetic power to the church, his gathered followers. You.

This shift of power marks a difference in tone and action between the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts. In the Gospels, the followers of Jesus are like vessels into which the words of Jesus and their experiences of Jesus are poured, filling them with hope and power and possibilities. The followers are called disciples, which means student. They sit at their master’s feet, their lord’s feet, and listen and learn.

But the ascension is graduation day, commencement. And as in all graduations, the students are sent out into the world to take what they have learned and to act on it. They become apostles, a word which means one who is sent. The focus changes from knowledge to mission. The question changes from Who is Jesus? to What do we do now that we know who Jesus is? In the Gospel, the disciples hear the good news. In Acts, the apostles act.

The questions of Luke and Acts are our questions. Who is Jesus? What do we do in light of knowing Jesus? And they lead to a third question for each of us: Who am I?

Jesus has always seemed to the church to be a complicated divine brother. On the one hand, he comforts us and heals us and is with us in times of need. He teaches us and guides us and we rely on him. This relationship is a kind of personal piety. Jesus is for me and I turn to him. There is a lot of this Jesus in the writings of Paul.

On the other hand, Jesus is a counter-cultural reformer, assertive and challenging. He preaches about changes in the world, in the system, not just in each of us, that promote justice for everyone without regard for privilege. This relationship is demanding of our compassion and courage. Jesus is for the world, and expects much of us, his brothers and sisters. There is a lot of this Jesus in the Gospels and in the book of Acts. The church often has seen this as a conflict and at different times in history one or the other view has prevailed.

But there are not two different persons of Jesus. Or even two sides of the same Jesus that appear different, like in that old story about the blind men and the elephant. We are both comforted and sent. We are freed of fear of death so we can perform with courage dangerous acts of compassion. And when we act on the behalf of others, we find ourselves becoming closer to Jesus and fed by him. As the opening hymn says, “live in the light! … [and] be the light.” We have a relationship with a guy who is both divine and human. Who eats and walks and dies like a human and ascends like a god. A relationship like that is going to be intense.

We are both disciples and apostles. We are listeners and speakers. We are learners and teachers. We are beneficiaries of God’s grace and messengers of it. We cannot only sit at the feet of Jesus, comfortably informed. We cannot only be good worldly citizens, urgently active. As Christians, we belong to both Part 1 and Part 2, to both the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles.

In both parts, the followers of Jesus gather into groups. We are in this together, as the disciples who became apostles were in it together. We come to church to worship together, to join others in their times of thanksgiving and times of sadness, to be fed and energized. So that we may go out into the world strong and eager.