Waiting and Witnessing

Are there any Star Trek fans out there? I prefer the original series myself. But it doesn’t matter which incarnation – there’s a certain sameness to the way the spaceships are portrayed on the TV or movie screen. 

When a Federation starship and its opponent belonging to the Klingons or Romulans are locked in combat, the two ships are always symmetrically aligned with one another, in parallel planes. For both ships, “up” is up and “down” is down. You never have one spacecraft flying upside down, nor floating askew at some crazy angle. It’s as though they’re sailing ships upon the sea. They’re still behaving as though the earth’s gravitational field has some influence.

But in the real outer space, there is no gravity. That means there’s no up and no down, just out — 360 degrees from any given point.

That’s a bit mind-blowing for poor, earthbound creatures like us. The producers of Star Trek are well aware of that, and that’s why they portray their spaceships flying as though there were an up and a down. (It’s only entertainment, after all!)

Now, apply that thinking to Jesus’ ascension. If there’s no up or down outside the Earth’s gravitational field, then why does Jesus have to be taken “up” in order to get to heaven? One thing’s for certain: heaven is not “up” at all, just as hell is not “down,” deep within the Earth’s molten core, Dante’s Inferno notwithstanding.

Now, maybe the disciples saw exactly what Luke says they saw. But if they did, it had to be some kind of mystical vision, not an actual, scientific observation of Jesus on his way to a physical heaven.

Yet, the Ascension is vitally important to our understanding of the story of Jesus and the church. Forty days after his resurrection, there on the Mount of Olives, Jesus tells his disciples what to do next. He has spent three years instructing and training them for this moment, and now, as he departs to take his royal place with the Father, he commissions his disciples to carry on his work until he returns to bring it to completion.

It’s about waiting and witnessing.

Jesus orders his disciples not to go rushing off into the world with their newfound knowledge, but, rather, they are to “wait there for the promise of the Father” and the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Waiting isn’t something that we humans tend to do well. We can see that with the phased re-opening of America.  While we can now go to the beach, we still can’t go to the movies.  Armed protesters have visited several state capitols to demand an end to waiting.

The disciples were also an impatient lot, wondering when the Kingdom of Israel was going to be restored.  They didn’t get it.

But that’s okay. Jesus did not choose these disciples because they were the best and brightest and most capable people. He chose them, as God often chooses people, because God’s power can be revealed through them. 

Jesus tells his disciples that they need to wait for the Spirit’s power. They do so not by sitting around wondering when the Spirit will come, but rather by constantly devoting themselves to prayer (v. 14).

One of the problems in the church is a failure to wait upon the Lord, to wait upon the Spirit through prayer. The primary work of the church is done through the Spirit. Apart from the Spirit, we are powerless. When we fail to wait in prayer, we will fail because we try to do everything under our own power.

Waiting then leads to witnessing. Jesus tells the disciples that once the Spirit has come upon them and empowered them, they will be his witnesses. And then Jesus gives them their travel agenda. They are to begin in Jerusalem, where Jesus had been crucified and where people were looking for them, too. They were to go to Judea and Samaria (Samaria being Israel’s bitter enemy). And they were to go to the ends of the earth, to a Roman Empire that already had a lord named Caesar and would not take kindly to the enthronement of a rival.

The disciples would bear good news, but it would be bad news to some. It’s no coincidence that the Greek word for witness and “martyr” is the same.

To be a witness for Jesus thus means a whole lot more than merely telling the story about how an individual gets to heaven, as it has sometimes been understood.

To be a witness is to proclaim and demonstrate Christ’s lordship in our own lives, tell those stories of forgiveness and transformation, and recall how God’s grace has made us new. We witness through our lifestyle, our actions and our love for the world that is God’s good creation. It’s a witness that is grounded in a Jesus-shaped vision of the world as God’s kingdom. It’s a witness that compels the world to ask: Who is your Lord?

Luke tells us that Jesus ascends in a “cloud,” leaving the disciples standing there gawking at the amazing sight (v. 9). A lot of Christians still do that, focusing all their attention on a heavenly destiny or waiting for the sky to fall like Chicken Little.

But the two angels who show up tell the disciples of Jesus that the sky isn’t their destiny. “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” (v. 11). So now, they imply, pick up the mantle and go to work. Turn your gaze from the sky and toward the world that needs the message of the good news of the kingdom. Go and be witnesses.

Paul Harvey, the well-known radio broadcaster, once said, “Too many Christians are no longer fishers of men but keepers of the aquarium.”

Instead of just preserving the Church, we are to be about touching the lives of other people, helping folks discover the source of wholeness, the fountain of living water that wells up to eternal life.

Back in the days of the American West, there used to be three classes of tickets on the old stagecoaches. The ride was equally bumpy and dusty no matter which ticket you held; the real value of the ticket emerged when the stagecoach got stuck.

If you held a first-class ticket, it was your privilege to remain in the coach, while the crew labored to push it out of the ditch. If you held a second-class ticket, you were expected to step down from the coach and stand off to the side. If it was a third-class ticket you held in your hand, you had to get out, roll up your sleeves, and push.

Well, there aren’t any tickets in the church but third-class tickets. Everyone is expected to work, and use their talents to advance the mission of Jesus Christ. There’s no standing around, looking up toward heaven.

Yes, Jesus will come back, but for now Jesus is still at work, and he chooses to do that work through us.