Acts
1:1-11
If I ever get the chance, by God’s
grace, to sit down in heaven and talk with Luke, who wrote not only the gospel
but also the book of Acts, I am going to point out that he caused –
inadvertently, I’m sure – a whole lot of trouble when he included one little
detail in his account of Jesus’ ascension.
It appears in Acts, but not in Luke.
“While
he was going and they were gazing up towards heaven, suddenly two men in white
robes stood by them. They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking
up towards 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.’” [Acts 1:10-11]
That has fed into a
ridiculous branch of pseudo-scholarship that really took off in the nineteenth
century, where people get totally hung up on trying to figure out when Jesus
will return.
There was an Irishman named John Nelson Darby who takes the
credit for developing an itinerary for the Lord to follow, by grabbing a verse
from Daniel here and a passage from I Thessalonians there, pouring on a few
cups of Revelation, heating it over fire and brimstone until it turned into a
system called Dispensationalism. It was
popularized by Cyrus Scofield, the founder of what we used to call the
Philadelphia College of Bible, currently Cairn University. The Scofield Reference Bible was a regular
King James Version, but with marginal notes referring to Darby’s theories. All of that has been continued, first on
radio, then on television, and all over the internet, by people who will tell
you (whether you ask them or not) that they have discovered a secret code that
unlocks the mysteries of Jesus’ plans.
I guess they never read the passage at the start of Acts where
Jesus’ disciples ask him about when and how God’s kingdom will come in its
fullness, and Jesus tells them not to bother about that.
“So
when they had come together, they asked him, ‘Lord, is this the time when you
will restore the kingdom to Israel?’ He replied, ‘It is not for you to
know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.’” [Acts 1:6-7]
We can be sure that
God does have his plans and does have the ultimate end of things under control. Trust him with that, as with everything
else. The process is underway
already. It’s not something future to
plan for. It’s something present, to
experience.
The fact that God sent his Son as a Savior who cherishes each of
his children, even going to the cross for us, rather than sending him as a tyrant
or as a cosmic policeman to arrest us, who have all broken God’s law – that
shows us that God’s will is not to destroy, but to redeem. There is nothing hidden about that. It’s not a puzzle to figure out. Ephesians says that
“With all wisdom and
insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his
good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of
time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” [Ephesians 1:8-10]
In the fullness of time that will happen. Redemption has already begun, and will come
to completion in God’s time. You cannot
rush the appearance of cherry blossoms in the spring or the cherries in the
summer. In God’s time, they appear. You cannot force the tide to come in early,
or to stay longer than it ever does. You
cannot rush it. Neither can you stop it.
As
Jesus went into heaven, he prepared his followers to expect that moment. On the one hand, it’s possible to look at
that moment with fear. I get that
feeling whenever I hear someone say that “we’re living in the last days”. Maybe it’s just me. But when I read this part of Acts, I hear him
say to wait less for his return than to be ready for the presence of the Spirit
in the meantime, and to wait like a racer waits at the starting line, not like
a runner looking for the race finally to be over. He said,
“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.” [Acts 1:8]
And they did just that.
So,
how do we – who are also disciples – know when the moment is right? It isn’t by calculating years from obscure
verses, but by listening to the living Word.
We don’t always get the unmistakable signs that the first disciples got,
as when at Pentecost
“there
came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house
where they were sitting. Divided
tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.”
[Acts 2:3]
Sometimes what we get are gentler hints, sort of
Spirit-nudges. I’ll just speak for
myself here, since that’s how it works for me.
I confess that I ignore them sometimes, thinking I’m just being silly or
imagining something, and later on find out that I should have paid
attention. On the whole, though, when I
do pay attention to that little voice that says, “So-and-so sounded a little
quiet the other day,” or maybe, “Why don’t you go down this block instead?” or
“Send a copy of this cartoon to So-and-So”, it may very well open the door to a
moment when God’s grace enters unexpectedly into some situation. Jesus told Nicodemus,
“The
wind blows where it chooses” or “The spirit blows where it chooses”
(the word is the same in
New Testament Greek). Let’s go with
“The
wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know
where it comes from or where it goes. So
it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” [John
3:8]
We may not know, and are not meant to know, the great
and overarching plans of which our own lives are just one small (but necessary)
part. We can know, and deep down I think
we do know, when there are moments that matter more than others, when one word
fitly spoken or one deed of kindness or courage is asked of us, that we may be
“witnesses in
Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” [Acts 1:8]
If we faithfully attend to those, the rest will be in
God’s hands, who knows better than any of us do with the big stuff.
“Be still, my soul. The Lord doth undertake
To guide the future, as
he has the past.
Your hope, your
confidence let nothing shake.
All now mysterious shall
be bright at last.
Be still, my soul. The wind and waves still know
His voice who ruled them
while he dwelt below.”
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