The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

May 28, 2017

Vertical to Horizontal

Acts 1:6-14

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.”

When he had said this, as they were watching,

he was lifted up,

and a cloud took him out of their sight.

While he was going

and they were gazing up toward heaven,

suddenly two men in white robes stood by them.

They said, “Men of Galilee,

why do you stand looking up toward 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.”

Then they returned to Jerusalem

from the mount called Olivet,

which is near Jerusalem,

a sabbath day’s journey away.

When they had entered the city,

they went to the room upstairs

where they were staying,

Peter, and John,

and James, and Andrew,

Philip and Thomas,

Bartholomew and Matthew,

James son of Alphaeus,

and Simon the Zealot,

and Judas son of James.

All these were constantly

devoting themselves to prayer,

together with certain women,

including Mary the mother of Jesus,

as well as his brothers.

*****************************************************

It is a remarkable scene Luke gives us

in the opening pages of Acts:

Jesus, our Lord, risen from the grave,

having spent 40 days with his followers,

is lifted up,

taken up into the heavens,

as though he’d stepped into a invisible elevator,

as though gravity had lost its hold

on our Lord’s body.

His apostles are struck speechless by the sight,

transfixed,

their eyes glued to him,

their heads slowly tilting back,

all in perfect unison,

like the crowds that would fill the beaches

of Cape Canaveral two millennia later,

watching a Space Shuttle lift off the launchpad.

Luke opens the scene so prosaically, though,

the apostles questioning Jesus:

“Lord, is this the time when you will restore

the kingdom to Israel?”

We cannot claim to know the mind of our Lord,

but surely he must have thought to himself,

“All this time and they still don’t get it.”

His reply came in stern words,

“It is not for you to know

the times or periods

that the Father has set by his own authority.”

But then our Lord,

always graceful, always grace-filled,

ever patient,

softened his tone,

“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.”

Do you hear what Jesus was saying to them?

We need to listen and understand

because Jesus is talking to us as well,

here and now:

It isn’t for us to know the mind of God,

to know God’s plans, God’s schedule.

What we are to know,

what Jesus wanted his apostles to know,

and what Jesus wants us to know,

is that we have work to do,

we followers of Christ:

the work of taking the gospel of Jesus Christ

out into the world,

to the very ends of the earth.

This is the work Jesus calls us to,

work we are empowered to do,

enabled by God’s Holy Spirit.

So we should not find it

the least bit surprising, then,

to hear in our lesson,

the words of the white-robed men,

presumably angels of the Lord God:

“Men of Galilee,

why do you stand looking up toward heaven?”

In other words:

“Why are you standing around gawking at the sky?

You have work to do.”

The apostles hustled back to Jerusalem

back to that city where only a few weeks before

they’d been frozen with fear,

frozen to inaction.

But the fear was gone now,

melted by their time with the Risen Christ.

And so they gathered

to ready themselves through prayer

as they waited —

the apostles,

along with “certain women”,

and, as Luke tells us, Jesus’ brothers.

Yes, Jesus very likely had real brothers,

and sisters as well,

sons and daughters born to Joseph and Mary

after Mary gave birth to Jesus.

They prayed as they waited –

prayed as they waited

for the Spirit to come upon them;

which, of course,

the Spirit did in such dramatic fashion

on that first Pentecost.

But Pentecost is next week,

so we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

Our focus with this text

should be on the vertical and the horizontal,

to use terms Diana Butler Bass gave us

two months ago when she was here.

The vertical is God’s power

coming down through the Holy Spirit;

God’s grace and love,

coming down through Jesus Christ;

and then God’s power of grace and love

going out horizontally through us,

you and me,

through all of Jesus’ followers,

to the very ends of the earth.

The apostles clearly didn’t get this

as they spent their last day with Jesus.

Their question to him makes that clear:

“Lord, is this the time when you will restore

the kingdom to Israel?”

Were they looking to rout the Romans?

Chase away the Greeks and other Gentiles?

Turn Israel back to a good Jewish nation,

pure and undefiled?

Is that what they really thought lay ahead for them?

Is that what they thought Jesus wanted?

It seems all too likely

that the apostles were still – still –

looking for King David,

still looking for the warrior messiah

astride his mighty white steed,

sword in hand!

“You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem,

in all Judea and Samaria,

and to the ends of the earth.”

Those were our Lord’s words to the apostles.

And they are our Lord’s words to us.

We are called to witness,

called to take the Word out into the world

…to the ends of the earth.

“Blessed are the merciful,

for they will receive mercy.”

(Matthew 5:7)