“Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them.  “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk from the city.  When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying.“
Acts 1:6-13

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AUGUST 26, 2024

Our text for this week finds these familiar characters in a familiar place: upstairs in the room where they are staying.

We’ve seen them here before. In fact, there are several components of this story we’ve seen before. Just forty days earlier, the women came to Jesus’ tomb to complete the burial tasks only to find His body gone. Luke wrote:

“While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them…the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ”
Luke 24:4, 5b-7

Both then and now, Jesus’s body is not where it is expected to be. In both cases, messengers from God appear and ask, essentially: “Why are you looking for Jesus here?” And then they explain where Jesus is.

Then, in both stories, the believers assemble in the upper room where they are staying, gathering together, waiting, wondering.

Can you imagine what is going through their minds and hearts? First the man they believed to be the Messiah, the Son of God come to save Israel, was killed by the very enemies they hoped he would defeat. Then, He was not dead at all, but alive and standing before them! And then, just as they ask “Now will you save Israel and defeat our enemies?”….He disappears.

I wonder if it was tense in that upper room. They were confused, certainly. Disappointed? Surely. Discombobulated and disoriented? They must have been. Even after all this time, Jesus’ closest followers cannot grasp what this has all been about, that Jesus’ mission is not to Israel, but for the whole world.

Two thousand years later, we’re in a similar boat, aren’t we? We’re so confident we know what Jesus is up to, and quite certain it means something very specific for our people, our nation.

But the wideness of God’s mercy keeps surprising us.

Questions for reflection and discussion:

  • What do you think is happening in that upper room at this point in the story?
  • How does the disciple’s misunderstanding of Jesus’ mission line up with our own misunderstandings of Jesus’ mission?
  • What is Jesus actually up to—then and now?

Church Reading Plan: Lamentations 3; Psalm 34