Heavens Above (Acts 1:1 - 11)

      One of the most important things for us 21^st-Century types to understand is that the authors of the New Testament did not have the same world view we “moderns” have.  The ancients viewed heaven as having geographic reality just like earth; that is, they believed that heaven is a physical place that has a relationship to earth you could point to, and that relationship of course is “up.”  The abode of the gods was thought to be up above us, in the sky, and further, the Earth was thought to be an imperfect reflection of this godly realm.  This of course is seen in Greek drama, where what happens in heaven is mirrored on earth, but for us imperfect mortals, often to tragic effect.  You can also see this in the New Testament . . . every Sunday we say:  “Our father who art in heaven” – there’s heaven as a place – “Hallowed be thy name.  Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  We’re asking that things be done here on earth as they are done in heaven.  In fact, the whole notion of the Kingdom of God is shot through with this.  If God’s rule in heaven is just, if the poor are never hungry or oppressed, if the blind see and the lame walk in heaven, then the coming of the Kingdom of God is nothing less than making Earth – now an imperfect reflection – into a perfect reflection of heaven.
      One of the problems many of us moderns have – although surely nobody in this room – is an overweening arrogance about it all . . . we’re convinced that our world-view is superior, we call it an “enlightenment” world view, for Pete’s sake, as in, aren’t we enlightened compared to those primitives in the pre-modern era, primitives like Michelangelo or Aristotle or Thomas Aquinas, Leonardo Da Vinci or Plato or Martin Luther . . . and this arrogance filters down lo unto the very basics of our faith . . . my favorite Episcopalian ex-Bishop, John Spong – who I may have said before my friend calls Spronnngggg! – has made a career out of it, a career out of ridiculing pre-modern beliefs . . . he’s written the same book over and over again, telling us that we’d better get rid of all these quaint beliefs like the virgin birth or the resurrection or the insert-your-miracle-here, cause nobody in the modern world would believe that, and I suspect that this obsession tells us more about John Spong, and his embarrassment over his faith, than it does about that faith itself . . .

      And of course this primitive guy Jesus said something about how those who are ashamed of him and his words of them he’ll be ashamed, but aside from that, whenever I read this morning’s lesson I think of Spong, who singled this episode out in one of his books, deriding it as Jesus lifting off like a rocket ship, isn’t that quaint, and I think it betrays a remarkable literalness about the modern mind-set, a remarkable lack of imagination . . . Luke’s audience would have had no trouble seeing this as symbolic, they would have had no trouble viewing it on more than one level . . . like biblical literalism itself, the obsession with debunking the miracles in Scripture is a purely modern affliction . . .

      In fact our passage is shot through with symbolism, beginning with its first line . . . Luke addresses it to Theophilus, and though there has been speculation over the years about who this person’s identity – Was he Luke’s patron?  Was he an elder of the church? – I rather think that Luke has written it to all of us, because after all, Theophilus is Greek for “God lover,” and we do all love God, don’t we?  Even though the idea of God itself is a pre-enlightenment notion?

      But the inscription reminds us of something else, it reminds us that the book of Acts is not just a history, not just a record of the activities of the early church, although it is surely that . . . the book of Acts is a Theological document as well, it has a viewpoint, an agenda, if you will . . . this is a story not only for the God-lovers, it’s about the God-lovers as well, it wants to project a certain image of them, it wants make certain theological points.

      And one of the points it wants to make here is the obvious one . . . Jesus Christ was lifted up into heaven . . . and note the passive construction, it said he was “lifted up” and that of course implies somebody doing the lifting . . . Jesus didn’t lift himself up, he was lifted up, as the two men in white said he was taken up, and we all know by whom . . . and what about those two men in white, anyway?  White symbolizes purity, it symbolizes holiness and righteousness . . . in his Gospel account of the transfiguration, Luke describes Jesus’ clothes as “dazzling white.”  And then again, at the tomb, the women find instead of Jesus two men in dazzling clothes . . . are these men in our passage the same guys?  In a way, they’re acting like kind of a Greek chorus, telling the disciples what’s going on, giving them needed information . . . kind of like angels . . . are they angels?  Angels means messenger in Greek . . . and they’re delivering a message, all right . . . and here’s the point: God took Jesus – now the risen Christ – God took Jesus up to heaven . . . and if we don’t get the point, it’s pounded into us: the last verse repeats the word heaven three times: “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?  This Jesus who was taken into heaven, will return the same way you saw him go into heaven.”  Where has Jesus gone?  Into heaven, already . . . And of course, this gives us a clue as to his identity, doesn’t it?  The messengers are telling us that Jesus is the Son of God, returning to live in the home of his heavenly parent.

       But even though Jesus has gone from them, even though his heavenly parent has reached down and scooped them up, the apostles are not left high and dry.  As Jesus says “John baptized with water,” Jesus says, just before his departure, “but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."  And of course, that is what we celebrate not many days from now at Pentecost . . . but the disciples, there at that last meeting with him, want to know what’s going to happen,  they want to know how it’s all going to go down, and so they ask the question they’d been asking from the beginning “is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”  Is it finally here?  And we know what kingdom they’re talking about . . . it’s the Davidic kingdom, the kingdom of their once and future King . . .

      After all this time they still don’t get it, they still don’t understand what’s going on . . . it’s as if they’re thinking “ok, we got that crucifixion and resurrection stuff outa’ the way . . . now let’s get on with the real deal, the real agenda . . . let’s get that kingdom restored.  After all, you are the Messiah, are you not?”  But Jesus just patiently lays it on the line: it’s not for y’all to know the times or periods that God has set . . . sorry.  I don’t care how many Y2Ks come and go or how many charts John Hagee puts up on the wall, it’s not for you to know.  Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins can write a whole library on the subject – and trust me, they will – but you’re not gonna figure it out.  It’s just not for you to know.

      But here’s what I will do for you, he says, I’ll give you power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and everywhere, to the ends of the earth.  And this witnessing business is no small potatoes, no small deal . . . it takes power to witness, the power of the Holy Spirit will come upon the disciples at Pentecost.  And that makes sense, doesn’t it?  After all, the Greek for witness is “martyr,” and that title came to be associated with Christians whose witness included the ultimate act of self-giving, the giving up of their lives . . . those Christians took Christ at his word when he said “those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their lives for my sake will save it.”  Their witness was a sign-post pointing to Christ’s ultimate act of self-giving, his death on a Roman cross.

      Of course, that kind of total witness, whether it involves giving up your physical existence on this planet or not, isn’t easy . . . and that’s what the power of the Holy Spirit is for, it’s to support Christians in this risky, difficult, downright-dangerous undertaking of being a witness to Christ.  And this imbuing of individual people with the Holy Spirit’s power is something entirely new that God is doing with us Christians . . . the Hebrew scriptures – which we call the Old Testament – tells of the Spirit of God working in the world . . . Jesus himself tells Nicodemus that “the wind, the spirit, blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes,” and it’s still like that, the Spirit of God is still loose in the world, wild, unpredictable and free, but now – through the agency of Christ – we are able to wield some of that power . . . or at least that power can undergird our actions, it can support our witness to Christ.

      Early on in the movie The Apostle, the title character Sonny Dewey is doing some tag-team preaching . . . y’all don’t know about tag-team preaching?  Well, it’s when one of the evangelists is preachin’ and steppin’ and hollering about the Lord, and another comes up and pops him on the back or the arm, he comes up and tags him and takes over, and it goes on like that sometimes for hours, and Sonny is tagged by this humongous preacher in a white suit who starts stepping across the stage yelling “I got the Holy Ghost powah!  I got the Holy Ghost powah!”  He’s happy about it, it animates him, it gives him joy . . . it gives him strength to live in a world that’s not always sympathetic to three-hundred pound black men . . .

      And you know what?  We got the Holy Ghost powah as well . . .  we got that high-steppin’, blowin’ in the wind Spirit power to uphold us as we undertake the dangerous business of witnessing to Christ . . . what?  You say that you’ve never felt endangered by your witness for the Gospel?  You’ve never been afraid, you’ve never felt like you might be called upon to actually take up that cross and follow Christ to the end?  Ok, maybe not . . . I’ll buy that.  There’s at least a veneer of religious tolerance in this country . . . it’s not like we’re Muslims or anything . . . but we’ve all felt the ridicule as we bear witness in public, as we give credit to Christ for a good work – we always say we’re doing it in Christ’s name, don’t we? – or we bow our heads in a restaurant to give thanks . . . if we haven’t – and again I’m sure all of us in this room have – but if we haven’t, perhaps we ought to examine our witness to Christ . . .

      Our whole reason for being is to be his witnesses in Cincinnati, in all Ohio and Indiana and, lo! even to the ends of the earth . . . if we are not fulfilling this, if we’re not witnessing to Christ in thought word and deed, then what good are we to God?  After all, heaven is up there, not down here, and as that Greek angel chorus said “Why are we looking up into heaven?  Christ’s gonna come back here, back to earth.”  The action’s here on earth, the witness is here on this planet.  Fix not your hearts on heavenly things, brothers and sisters, but on our witness here on earth.  Heaven will take care of itself.  Amen.