Rubbernecked to Heaven
Acts 1:1-11
In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
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.”
Rubbernecked to Heaven
There are seasons and moments in our lives that we never want to end. I was spending time with friends in Princeton on Friday, and coincidentally walked past the seminary chapel. There are these large steps leading up to the Roman-Greco-style building, and it looks out over the quad.
And on those steps, close friends and I would “stoop,” as one friend termed it. We sat on the stairs, typically in the summer and fall, with some sort of junk food, before we cracked open a few cold ones. It was perfect. We would chat about anything and everything, from theology to dying parents to the lyrics of Kendrick Lamar.
It was a moment and season I was always reluctant to leave. It was a season where I felt my heart lifted up to God.
You may have had one of these moments in your life. It may have been on a mission trip, or camping in the mountains, or at the birth of a child.
It lifts our hearts up, and draws us upward so intensely, that we catch a glimpse of the very presence of Jesus Christ.
“You may have had one of these [soul-lifting] moments in your life. It may have been on a mission trip, or camping in the mountains, or at the birth of a child.”
When we read or hear today’s scripture, there are two easy ways to relate to it. The first is that we are awed by its glory and its profundity. This is the final moment Jesus spends with his disciples, offering a farewell address, and prophesying of the coming Pentecost.
The glory and radiant imagery taps into other ascensions in the Bible. It draws our attention backward to Enoch, who is lifted into heaven as a sign of God’s pleasure and favor with him. And we remember Elijah, who ascended in a great whirlwind, in the presence of angels, and who left his disciple Elisha behind.
Christian art has been captivated by the Ascension, offering stunning, captivating paintings depicting the event in all its radiance.
There are seasons and moments in our lives like this: when we catch glimpses of the glory and love and beauty of Jesus Christ and God Almighty. We are fortunate when we feel as if there is a hole punched into the heavens, and we see its light pouring into our lives. For some people, this happens during intentional times for reflection and renewal, like at a spiritual retreat. For others, it happens during times of fellowship and the love of others, like I felt while stooping on the chapel steps. And for some, it even happens in close proximity to death, like when they have a near-death experience, or when they are in the final hours and moments of life.
But there’s a second easy way we can relate to this text. After Christ’s crucifixion, they were dazed and confused, and scripture suggests they felt abandoned. They thought then—and in today’s text—that Jesus of Nazareth was here as a political or religious messiah, who was surely going to restore the power and safety of the Hebrew people. But then, after his crucifixion, he was resurrected. Surely now Jesus is restoring a stately, militaristic country! But Jesus was not. And yet again, for a second time, Jesus leaves his disciples. As he ascends, I have to imagine there was a pregnant pause. It’s easy to imagine them being too stunned to speak. After being awed by the sight of the ascension, reality set in: there was no going back to those days they shared with Jesus.
Like them, grief strikes us when we least expect it. It comes back when we thought we were over it. But there is sometimes a cost to the gift of ecstasy and beauty: it is hard to leave its presence. It leaves us a little disoriented when we return to the doldrums of life, or broken expectations, or a season that is simply ordinary.
“But there is sometimes a cost to the gift of ecstasy and beauty: it is hard to leave its presence.”
In both cases—the glorious, radiant ascension, or its disorientation afterward—we are often left looking up toward the heavens. We keep trying to catch glimpses through the clouds of glory, or tarry in its grief.
That is when these two robed figures speak to the disciples: ”why do you stand looking up toward heaven?“
We might be tempted to think that these angels are asking “why aren’t you doing what Jesus told you to do?” But the Greek authors didn’t recount Jesus offering a command. Jesus is not saying “you will,” in an imperative mood, like “you are to do X-Y-Z.” The Greek recounts Jesus using an indicative mood. He is making an observation, a prophecy if you will. “One day… you will find yourselves as witnesses!”
So what are the angels saying? There’s nothing left to stare at. And in part, avert the disciples’ eyes from what was suddenly in the past, and toward a vision of Christ’s return in love and reconciliation.
These disciples are rubbernecked to heaven — to a spiritual event of the past, and a ministry of the past, and their ways of the past. It’s possible they were trying to figure it all out; to digest the life, death, and resurrection of their friend so completely, that they forgot about Jesus’ words: “To Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
It’s possible they were so focused on orienting their lives right side up, and licking the wounds of their broken expectations, that they kept staring into the heavens.
But fortunately, unlike the disciples, the Presbyterian Church gets everything right! Right?
We all know that we are rubbernecked to heaven, sometimes, too. There’s something comforting in knowing that we’re the most recent in a long line of rubberneckers.
We wait, and wait, and wait, until every children’s classroom is full, and we once again have a superintendent of Sunday school. Or we think, and think, and think about an afterlife where we play harps with angel wings, and in doing so, forget that Christ came to sinners, the hungry, the poor, and the sick. Or we get lost in study, hoping that one day, we’ll get all the answers, but in doing so, remain fixated on an intellectual faith, rather than a faith that’s alive.
“And in part, the angels avert the disciples’ eyes from what was suddenly in the past, and toward a vision of Christ’s return in love and reconciliation.”
But these angels don’t offer a stern rebuke. They don’t make an imperative command. They offer a gentle reminder.
And Christ, too, doesn’t offer any stern, heavy, laborious command here. He says in effect, “one day… you all will become witnesses of me to all the world.”
It’s not hard to believe Jesus is saying that to us, today. It’s not hard to believe that those angels are giving us a gentle nudge.
Jesus never commands us to forget or bury the experiences of joy, and hope, and love that continue to draw our attention. But he does say that his disciples will be rubbernecked to humanity. Rubbernecked to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.
When Jesus offers this observation, he chooses his words carefully. Jerusalem was the place these disciples were visiting. Judea was where they were comfortable. Samaria was where they despised. And the ends of the world were places the disciples never dreamed of, that they could not even anticipate.
If we are disciples of Christ, we are witnesses of the beauty, love, connection, and hope that Jesus brings into our lives, whether that’s through a dramatic spiritual experience or Christ’s soft and gentle ripples within us.
In a society that is accelerating faster and faster, feeling as if it’s spinning off the rails, we aren’t asked to do more and be more and fix more. Jesus instead says that he will see our witness in the world. Sometimes that’s an active, hands-on task. And sometimes it’s not.
In living as Christians, we will extend kindness and generosity in our assumptions about others. We’ll let go of the nasty language, stop using derogatory terms for others, and find the vernacular of love rolling off our tongues. As witnesses, we’ll be more patient with ourselves and others, following Christ’s example. In the face of evil, we will turn the other cheek, speak prophetically, and join hands with those who are hurting the most. We’ll exercise the ministry of prayer and protest; prophecy and pastoring one another.
In our lives, this might mean stepping away from social media, or it might mean changing our language on social media. It might mean giving yourself a breather before you give a coworker or family member an earful. It might mean small gestures of kindness, care, and forgiveness, or taking a moment to beautify your small corner of creation.
We’ll keep one eye on heaven, of course; but in whatever we do, we must focus our attention downward, toward the world Jesus beckons us to. Getting it ready for Christ’s kingdom of peace and love. Let’s rubberneck away from heaven, and toward the world around us.
Amen.
