Where Are You Leading Us, Lord?
Disciples Become Apostles
“But
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
So, as we saw in last month’s Bible study, the Risen
Christ doesn’t hang around the place of his temporary burial following Good
Friday. Jesus the Living One has places
to go, people to see, a world to capture with the astonishing news of God’s
victory at the Cross.
But in the first chapter of the Book of Acts the
disciples encounter a sharp curve in the road.
Having broken free from the grave, having returned to Galilee—the place
of mission—the Risen Christ takes his followers by surprise. While he was speaking with them “he
was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.” (Acts 1:9)
Jesus’ Ascension stops his followers dead in their
tracks—mouths agape, staring off into the stratosphere. What now?
The disciples might have stood there forever,
dumbfounded by the Ascended Jesus’s unexpected departure. But fortunately two men in white appeared,
snapping them out of their momentary stupor: “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 1:11)
So Jesus was still alive, still out ahead of his
followers, but no longer with his feet planted on the earth, at least for a
time. Ascension would not be the end of
it all. Jesus would return one final
time, to complete all things and make the whole creation new.
But what were Jesus’ followers to do in the
meantime?
No
Time for Distractions!
One thing the disciples were not to do was to get lost in speculation about the whys and
wherefores of Jesus’ subsequent return.
Jesus himself called that a dead end. “It is not
(emphasis added) for you to know the times or periods that
the Father has set by his own authority.”
(Acts 1:7)
Despite the crystal clarity of the Risen Christ on
this subject, generations of his followers have ignored his teaching. As recently as last year, a radio “evangelist”
Harold Camping predicted Christ’s final coming on May 21, 2011 at 6 p.m.
sharp. All over the world billboards were
put up, possessions were sold, “Rapture” sermons were delivered and “Left
Behind” parties were planned. And, of
course, our Lord didn’t return on Mr. Camping’s timetable.
There is a genuine issue at stake here, though. We long for God’s final purposes to be
achieved. We ache for God to consummate all of God’s saving
work. All Christians affirm the final
word about Jesus in the Apostles’ Creed, that “he will come again, to judge the living and the dead.”
But how and where and when exactly will that
happen? Jesus’ clearest answer is: “No one knows. Not the angels in heaven. Not even the Son. Only the Father knows….and he isn’t telling!”
(Matthew 24:36) Speculating about matters that are “beyond
us” will only distract us from what matters most to God.
Truth be told, we 21st century disciples
still get distracted by other things---end of the world speculating, moralizing
about other people’s behaviors, arguing over church politics. We can become so distracted by other, lesser
things that we miss the Main Thing, which is sharing Christ.
How does your community in Christ sometimes become distracted from
what matters most to God?
The
Way Ahead
It is way above our pay grade to know all the
details of Christ’s final coming. So we
would be wise to focus on other things.
And fortunately here in Acts 1 Jesus tells us what those other things
happen to be.
“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. But 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 1:6-8)
It’s not for us to peer into God’s heavenly
timetable. But what we can do is bear witness
here and now in this world.
Jesus
paints a picture of how that would play out for his first disciples. Picture it as a series of concentric circles. “You
will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you,” Jesus declares, “and you will be my witnesses
· in Jerusalem,
· in all Judea and Samaria, and
· to the ends of the earth.”
It all starts where it all started for Jesus, in Jerusalem, where the Cross was
raised up on the city’s garbage heap and where the crucified Jesus was raised
up three days later. Jesus says: “start here, in Jerusalem, then move on out
to the first ring of witness, Judea and
Samaria. Walk where I walked, and
then keep on moving out to the ends of
the earth.”
This is, in fact, exactly what unfolds in the Book
of Acts. With the ascended Jesus no
longer bound to a single spot on earth, he
now lives and moves in and through the community of disciples that bears his
name. Their communal life mirrors
remarkably the life of the earthly Jesus:
· By
calling Matthias to replace the traitor Judas, they reconstitute the Twelve followers whom Jesus first called (Acts
1:12-26)
· They are “baptized” by the fire and
wind of the Holy Spirit, as Jesus was baptized at the
Jordan River, claiming his identity as God’s beloved, chosen one (Acts 2:1-21)
· The disciples proclaim God’s
in-breaking Rule, as boldly as Jesus did, drawing
thousands into the community of Christ (Acts 2:22-47).
· They
continue Jesus’ redemptive ministry of healing
(Acts 3).
· They
stand up before opponents—the same
Council that condemned Jesus—and testify fearlessly to Christ (Acts 4).
· They
shape a radical new life, along the
contours of Jesus’ way of praise, service and generosity—even in the face
of persecution “push-back” (Acts 5).
· They
enter into their own Holy Week
“passion,” exemplified in the arrest, trial and martyrdom of the deacon
Stephen (Acts 6-7).
Slowly it must have become apparent to the disciples
that Jesus did not leave them at his Ascension. Jesus did not become absent from them—but
rather, he became powerfully present to them and in them, in the power of the
Holy Spirit. Their new life as the
community of Christ replicated and re-presented the life of Christ in the
world.
Is this not true for Christ’s disciples, his followers in every time
and place? How does your congregation,
your community of Christ, reflect and re-present the life of Christ today?
To
the Ends of the Earth
Jesus’ pre-Ascension commissioning of his disciples
in Acts 1:8 plays itself out in the first seven chapters of the Book of
Acts. There’s just one problem,
though: the disciples don’t get any farther
than Jerusalem.
This reminds me of what a Christian leader from
Africa once said: “Oh, you
Americans! You’re always trying to fish
INSIDE the boat.”
But Jesus, in Acts 1:8, is crystal clear. His followers’ place to fish is OUTSIDE the
boat, in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, to the ends of the earth. “Move on out,” Jesus commands.
Follow the narrative in the Book of Acts carefully, and
you’ll notice that Jesus’ first followers didn’t actually DO all that Jesus commissioned
them to do until Acts 8. The disciples
got “stuck” in Jerusalem until the horrific martyrdom of Stephen (Acts 7). THEN, “a
severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the
apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria.” (Acts 8:1)
God uses whatever’s at his disposal—even the horror
of persecution—to pursue God’s purposes, through God’s people.
God doesn’t call us to stay stuck in one place or to
try “fishing inside the boat.” God in Jesus
Christ calls us to move out, to advance into the world, bearing the Good News
about Jesus, wherever we are sent. God calls and energizes disciples (“followers”) to become apostles (“sent ones”).
When we get stuck, God gets us unstuck. In her book, The Great Emergence, author Phyllis Tickle quotes an Anglican
bishop who believes that about every 500 years the Christian church holds a big
rummage sale.[i] Every five centuries, give or take, God turns
the church upside down, in order to get us off our duffs and move us out once
again, to recapture for a new generation the freshness and alluring aroma of
the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Do you think we might be in such a “rummage sale” moment in today’s
church? How do you perceive God getting
us “unstuck” so that God can get us all sent out once again?
QUESTION: How
is God transforming disciples into apostles today? Where is God sending you?
ANSWER: Out
of the boat. Into the world. Bearing witness to Jesus.
Bishop Larry Wohlrabe
Northwestern Minnesota SynodEvangelical Lutheran Church in America
God’s work. Our hands.
For reflection and discussion: Please use the questions printed in red
throughout the Bible study.
This is
the ninth in a series of monthly Bible studies during 2012 focused on the
question: “Where Are You Leading Us,
Lord?” These columns are designed to
equip the disciples and leadership groups such as church councils, for faithful
and fruitful ministry. Feel free to use
the column for personal reflection or group discussion, e.g. church council
meeting devotions/discussion.
[i]
Phyllis Tickle, The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why
(Baker, 2008), p. 16.
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