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He is Risen, Therefore – why are you standing around?
He is Risen! Therefore…
Why are you standing around?
Acts 1:1-11
In Jesus Name
May you go out from this place, realizing that the grace, mercy and peace of God is with you, with the understanding that is it more glorious when you share it with others!
The Memorial Acclimation:
The words are familiar…..
“Christ has died! Christ has Risen, Christ will come again!”
At least, they should be to those of us who regularly gather here. We say something like them when we testify of our faith, using the words of the Creed. We sing them occasionally, too, when Chris puts the Memorial Acclimation in the service.
How often do we do those things anyways? ( both every week, twice in lent and advent!)
Yet I wonder if we hear them, when we do?
I think we get that He has died, for we celebrate that constantly. And that He is Risen? (He has Risen Indeed, Alleluia! And therefore We are risen indeed!)
But what about that last part, words similar to those two men, who spoke to the disciples, while they were just staring off into, well as they were staring off into space.
They ended the discussion with these words, “but someday he will return from heaven in the same way you saw him go!”
Do we hear those words? I mean, not just like hearing them as the sound waves travel in one ear and out the other. But hearing those words, and having them stick to our very soul. Do we hear that Jesus Christ will come again? Do we know it, count on it, live our lives in view of it?
Or do we need to hear the first words of the two men in white….
Men, why are you standing here, staring into heaven?
But why do we stand around like the apostles?
As I read the entire story, recorded by Luke for his friend, Theophilus, I wonder about these apostles, and I guess I am not surprised by their standing around. They weren’t the quickest to understand something.
Consider this.
in verse 2, we see that Jesus, in the forty days he walked with the apostles, had to prove to them in many ways that he was alive. That just seems more unbelievable than believing that someone could rise from the dead in the first place!
In the upper room twice, on the shores of Lake Galilee, appearing to Peter one other time, and I imagine that when the resurrected Jesus appeared to 500 as Paul writes about, some of the apostles were probably there!
Yet he still has to teach them, proving to them He was alive! Even that day, for Matthew 28 says, “Then the eleven disciples left for Galilee, going to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him—but some of them doubted! Matthew 28:16-17 (NLT)
It seems strange, that these men who walked with Jesus more than three years, who saw His wounds, who saw Him heal, who heard Him teach would still struggle to put together everything. Yet in those forty days, Jesus continued to invest Himself in His chosen men.
He went over the same lessons that He taught them prior to the cross, At least four times Jesus talked about the coming of God’s kingdom, and that it wasn’t known until it was revealed. At the last supper it was an issue, and here at the ascension, it still is! “When will we see you reigning over the world Lord?” they asked.
Maybe we still do?
Among the things He kept teaching them, indeed twice in this passage, is that they would be His witnesses. He had to keep letting them know that they would testify of what people needed to know about Jesus, to the world. He actually commissions them to this in verse 2, and then reminds them again in verse 8!
Yet, after all that, they are standing around, staring up into space?
Is it any wonder that we have the same issues today?
If we are like the apostles, what made a difference in their lives will make a difference in our lives, as we become witnesses of His to this world.
You see in the middle of the passage – Jesus reminds them that they will be baptized in the Holy Spirit. That the Holy Spirit will come into their lives, and that this is the reason they will be able to tell people about His life, his death, resurrection and that He is coming back.
That is part of what Jesus taught them, about the role of the Holy Spirit. In John 14, Jesus promised,
25 “I have told you this while I am still with you. 26 The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and make you remember all that I have told you. John 14:25-26 (TEV)
This includes us by the way, for even as the Apostles were baptized in the Spirit, so were you and I, when we were baptized in Christ. That what these apostles heard and saw, over and over, we too will recall. Prodded by the Holy Spirit, and those messengers that might just say to us, “why are you standing here, looking into space?”
Sharing our faith isn’t about the law – a duty enforced on us, any more than having the grace of God our father, the love and mercy show to us in Christ is. It is what happens when Jesus is revealed to us by the Holy Spirit, as we are continually taught about that love and mercy, and the Kingdom of God, and the day we shall see it.
It is what we are commissioned to do, because we are the children of God, sent into places like Cerritos, and Downey, La Palma and Buena Park and Lakewood. Sent to places like China, or the Philippines or Northern California, or even the doctor’s office or Walmart, to be His witnesses.
Even as we are in awe of God’s presence among us, even as we consider that Christ has Died, Christ has risen (wait for it), and yes, He will come again…….even as all that goes through our mind, it is time to stop standing around, and it is time to bring the news of God’s love to this lost and broken world.
We can do it, because we know that we dwell in the peace of God that passes all understanding, a peace in which Christ guards our hearts and minds… and therefore, we don’t have to just stand around!
AMEN?
Our Place is His Place!
Our Place is His Place
And the World would know!
John 14:23-31
† Jesus, Son, Savior †
May we welcome the Holy Spirit’s indwelling, confident of the love and mercy with which He cleanses our lives, and sets them apart to live in Christ with the Father!
Mi Casa et Su Casa: Ruth
Pentecost is more than a Sunday we celebrate once a year. It is more as well than the longest church season of the year – when that banner is up there, and when I wear a green stole to symbolize the growth of the church.
It is the start of something wonderful, something which defines every day every moment of our life. Because of the Holy Spirit, the one we confess is the Lord and Giver of our life.
One of the best illustrations of that life is found in the story of Naomi and Ruth. The promise that Jesus makes to us, comes more fully into focus when we hear the promise Ruth made to Naomi,
But Ruth said, “Don’t force me to leave you; don’t make me go home. Where you go, I go; and where you live, I’ll live. Your people are my people, your God is my god; 17 where you die, I’ll die, and that’s where I’ll be buried, so help me GOD—not even death itself is going to come between us!” 18 When Naomi saw that Ruth had her heart set on going with her, she gave in. Ruth 1:16-18 (MSG) 16
Of course, the Holy Spirit doesn’t say it quite like that – but the desire, the commitment, the very attitude of God is no less than Ruth’s, even unto death, God has made us a promise. “and We (the Father and Jesus) will come to him, and make Our Home with Him.”
May we indeed be like Naomi, and realizing that God has His heart set on going with us, may we give in, and welcome the Holy Spirit into our lives.
May we rejoice in the ministry of the Holy Spirit, may we rejoice in His presence, here and now.
Judas’ lack of vision
I was given an article this week, a pastor’s comments on the ascension, that troubled me. The basic concept was the reason the pastor thought Jesus ascended to heaven. He basically said the lesson of the Ascension was that God “trusts” us. That He left us to finish His work and trusts us to do it. Here’s a quote: “These were Jesus final marching orders: ‘Go everywhere you can and be a witness for love.’ And then He left”
Some really bad theology there, for a number of reasons. But I seem to recall the words a little differently
“18 Jesus drew near and said to them, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. 19 Go, then, to all peoples everywhere and make them my disciples: baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, 20 and teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. And I will be with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20 (TEV)
It’s that last line, the I will be with you always, that somehow I think the pastor missed.
And I think Judas’ question shows us why.
“Lord,” he says, “How is it that you will reveal your glory to us, but you will assure the world won’t be able to see it?”
I guess all the “light unto the gentiles stuff” and “that the world may know” that seems so much a part of the gospel readings slipped Judas’s mind for the moment. Even as I think that the mission of making disciples slips our mind occasionally.
Along with some of the other things God would have us do, like loving our neighbor, or feeding the poor, visiting the sick and imprisoned, and forgiving those who have sinned against us.
I pray that God doesn’t just “trust us, and then leave.” I need, and I believe you need the constant presence of the Comforter, to heal us, to comfort us, to empower and commission us to use the very gifts that the Spirit has invested in us….as we depend on Him
The Miracle of the Holy Spirit’s Ministry
As these two widows, the young Ruth and older Naomi moved to Jerusalem, Ruth took on the role of the provider. She was the one who went out into the fields and worked, she cared for her mother-in-law, even as she promised.
In many ways, this too pictures the relationship of the Holy Spirit with us, nourishing us with the word of God, gathering us to the sacrament, Jesus prophesies about this work in this way. “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”
This blessed work of the Holy Spirit, is something we so desperately need in our lives. For the treasure of the teachings of God are so easily pushed aside as we deal with the challenges in this world. We need to know God’s love, we know He is with us, we need to explore the depths of His love, and how that love changes us from people outcasts, to being His very children.
We need the Holy Spirit to help us adjust our priorities, to help us keep our focus on God. We need to be reminded of our baptism – the very place where the Spirit was poured out on us, reviving us and renewing us. We need the Holy Spirit to grant us repentance, to help us treasure the incredible words of Jesus, the promises made to us by the Son of God. We need to be reminded that God’s will is that no one should perish, that all would be transformed by God.
Here is how Paul described this work of the Holy Spirit,
27 God’s plan is to make known his secret to his people, this rich and glorious secret which he has for all peoples. And the secret is that Christ is in you, which means that you will share in the glory of God. 28 So we preach Christ to everyone. With all possible wisdom we warn and teach them in order to bring each one into God’s presence as a mature individual in union with Christ. Colossians 1:27-28 (TEV)
In other words – our place, wherever we are, He chooses as His place as well. And that is what the Holy Spirit teaches us, even as we teach others.
What is that message?
So what is it the Holy Spirit calls us to our minds, that which Christ had taught the disciples? Jesus said it this way,
“I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father.”
And the Father sent His Son to save us, to make us His own people.. and such you are…
For he has done this – He has left us in His peace, He has given us His peace, the comfort the Holy Spirit has made known to us.
Assured of this – we have no need of troubled hearts, nor anxious minds..
For the Spirit reminds us, we dwell with God, we are in Christ, we are welcome here… in His peace.
AMEN.
Related articles
- Welcome Holy Spirit? (justifiedandsinner.com)
