Story 2: Christ Comes to His Faithful Ones
Acts 1:1-11
While all the people of Jerusalem were still wondering about the crucifixion of Christ and the rumors that surrounded it, Jesus was meeting with His faithful friends, explaining to them what was going on. He spent forty days after His resurrection appearing to His disciples and teaching them about the Kingdom of God. God’s plans were going on just as God intended, and the disciples were going to play an important part.
But even as Christ taught them, He knew it was not the will of God the Father for Him to stay with the disciples on earth. He had conquered death and sin on the cross. It was time for Him to ascend into Heaven and take His seat at the right hand of his Father.
Jesus knew that once He went to Heaven, He was going to be coronated as King. How the angels must have delighted to have Him home! God would give Him power and authority over every other power that exists both now and for all eternity. It is important to understand that Jesus was always God, and so He always had all the powers of God (Colossians 1:15-20). But He chose to empty Himself and take on the likeness of a human through birth (Philippians 2:5-8). He became wholly human, and therefore fully able to bear the consequences of humanity’s fall. Just as sin had come to humanity through Adam, the free gift of grace had come through the death and resurrection of Jesus (Romans 5:15-17). Because of Christ’s profound humility and obedience, God the Father “…highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and ever tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Phil. 2:9-10).
Even as Jesus knew that He would be returning to Heaven, He had a plan for the disciples once He left. Luke tells us that one day while Jesus was eating with them, He said, “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” (Luke 1:4b-5)
The disciples heard this and were confused. They knew Jesus was the Messiah, but the Old Testament had said that the Messiah was going to set the nation of Israel free. Jesus had not done that yet. Israel was still being ruled by the Roman Empire. Did Jesus mean that the Holy Spirit was going to help the disciples set Israel free from Rome? Was Jesus preparing them to lead a war?
The next time Jesus came to them, they asked Him about it. When was He going to make Israel the greatest nation in the world? Jesus told them that God’s promise to make Israel a great nation again was for a different time in history. The work of the disciples was completely different. They had a very special task. There would still be a day when Israel would rule over all the earth, but it would happen in the future. That time was under God’s control, and it had not come yet. Jesus told them not to worry about it. It was far more important that the disciples learned what Jesus was telling them to do in their own time!
Then Jesus said, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
God was not going to build a national kingdom like He had with Israel before. He was going to build a spiritual Kingdom of people who put their faith in Christ. The disciples were going to be the heralds of the Kingdom, proclaiming God’s amazing plan to all the nations! Wow.
It is interesting that in that short sentence, Jesus was laying out a strategy for how to go about their service to God. First they were to proclaim the Gospel right where they already were, there in Jerusalem. That was a brave thing to ask them to do…Jesus had just been put to death because of His message in Jerusalem, and now He wanted His followers to take it up. But then He told them to take it to all of Judea, or the southern region of the nation of Israel. They had already travelled that region with Christ as the multitudes came after Him. Now they were to return to those same communities with the end of the story. Christ had risen! Then Christ said they were supposed to go to Samaria, which was to the north and farther away than Judea, and full of people who the Jews thought were unworthy half breeds. Just as Christ had visited Samaria, the disciples were meant to go and bring the whole story of Jesus’ death and resurrection to them.
And then Jesus said something that must have been striking to the disciples. They were supposed to go out and proclaim the Gospel to people that had no connection to Judaism…the Gentiles. The wider focus…the greater goal…was proclamation to the entire human race. Imagine how daunting that must have felt to this ragtag band of fishermen, zealots, and tax collectors.
As Jesus was explaining this, they were standing on the Mount of Olives. Across the valley in front of them was the city of Jerusalem. The great Temple gleamed bright and the people of the city moved around as if nothing important was about to happen.
When Jesus finished saying these things, He began to rise up into the air. He was taken up into the sky and disappeared into a cloud right in front of them! It was so strange and wonderful, they kept staring up even after He had disappeared. What did it mean?
And then, suddenly, two men dressed in white appeared beside them. It is probably hard for us to understand how disorienting all of these events would have felt. The laws of nature had no hold on these beings. The rules that create our sense of stability did not count for them. For just like the resurrected Christ, they were heavenly creatures, God’s holy angels. They asked the disciples, “Men of Galilee, 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” (1:11).
As the disciples walked home, something amazing was happening in the Heavenly realms. Christ the Lord had ascended to Heaven, where he would rule and reign for all eternity! Can you imagine the scene? The angels and the singing, the joy that the victory was won, the Son of God had won complete and total victory over sin and death! How the angels must have rejoiced!