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. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. - Acts 1:6-14
What next? This was the twist ending within the twist ending of the movie. First, the hero died in full view of a lot of witnesses, but (plot twist) he comes back to life and apparently it was foreshadowed all along. Second, the hero comes back but he doesn't try to "win" the way that we were expecting him to win. After Jesus came back from the dead, the disciples saw it as a major triumph, putting the kingdom plan back on track again. Yes, the hero died, but God's Messiah came back to life in triumph over the devil and all other enemies. They thought they would stop God's kingdom, but they couldn't and Jesus has returned to prove that they still can't.
But that's not what happened. In fact, Jesus rides off into the clouds and disappears. So the disciples need to regroup and have a deep think. They go to the upper room and ask themselves, "Did Jesus also foreshadow any of this plot twist as well?" Could this be what he meant when Jesus said, earlier this week, "Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father." (John 14:12)
The disciples need to rethink two big questions: What does the kingdom look like? and How do we get to the kingdom from today? For the first question, Jesus has put a big stopper on the idea that the kingdom is going to pop down and replace all of the bad guys with good guys and everyone lives happily ever after. So we need to have our eyes opened to a kingdom where the primary activity is not in the acquisition and deployment of power to achieve God's goals. He decided 2000 years ago against that plan of action. In fact, he demonstrated it by giving up power.
For the second question, Jesus firmly says that he's not going to be the one to do it, but rather the Spirit-enabled followers of Jesus are going to do it. That is: not me, says Jesus, but you. Now the disciples all knew what a bad idea that was, since they knew what fools they'd been as far as understanding how to act over the last three years. But God seemed to be using this bad idea and foolish disciples to bring his kingdom into effect.
Am I willing to be the weak and foolish one that he teaches and leads in the kingdom path?
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