Ascension: First  Reading, Acts 1:1-11

NOTE: The observance of the Ascension of Christ on the Calendar occurs this week on Thursday. I have chosen to write our weekly meditations on this joyous Festival rather than the lessons for Easter 7 (Sunday).

Can you picture it with me? Jesus, the risen Jesus has been walking and talking, eating and teaching in the presence of His disciples for 40 days since His resurrection from the dead. It is simply beyond imagining isn’t it? A once-dead Savior has been hanging with His closest friends for almost six weeks. And now, just as they are getting used to the reality of life from death, He prepares them for His now immediate departure.

He has proven the reality of His indestructible life in many ways, setting in their hearts a sure and certain conviction that He indeed is alive. But His life is not to be contained in this space. At least for now. Their conversation on the day of His departure centers on their question regarding the hope they have for a new empire, a new age of David. “Is it now, Lord?” Jesus assures them that it is not for them to know God’s timing--He doesn’t chastise them for wrong conclusions, but simply lets them know that it is not within God’s plan of revelation for them to know the times and dates. But that doesn’t mean that God has left them on the outside. Far from it.

Jesus is quick to encourage them, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (1:8). Do you see the difference in the disciple’s perspective and that of our Lord? They ask about the restoration of Israel. Jesus speaks of worldwide scope. They figure it will be only the Lord’s doing. Jesus educates them that the task will be of the Spirit of the Lord but through them. And just as Luke recorded the disappearance of Jesus from the Emmaus Road disciples at the breaking of the bread, here Jesus leaves the His monumental task in their hands and then … departs. 

The Holy Spirit given first to the disciples and then to us, is given for a reason. That the world would hear of a God-invasion that has secured (past tense) the redemption of the universe. Much of the Christian world preaches a message that says, “When you believe you will be redeemed.” That’s not the Bible message. Redemption is in Christ from before the foundation of the world, realized in space-time history on a hill outside of Jerusalem two thousand years ago. Done. But the “gap,” the wait is for men, women and children to exercise God’s gift of faith, through God’s gift of the gospel in the Holy Spirit. The power given to the disciples after the ascension is given to us in our baptism. It resides in us and is fed in us to compel us to proclaim the truth of an accomplished salvation. His ascension, our commission. In the power of His Spirit that all the world may hear. The Holy Spirit IS the perfect gift.