Where You Are

Scripture — Acts 1:1-11 (NRSV)

In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning 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.”

Devotion

If you can pardon a small commercial, I’m currently writing the text for a short guide to the Christian year which will be released later this year by Christian History magazine. Though I’ve been a liturgical Christian for many years and an Episcopal clergyperson for a decade, I’ve actually had to do some research on the history of some Christian feasts and seasons—including Ascension Day, which is today. It’s always ten days before Pentecost (which is June 8 this year) and thus always falls on a Thursday. (The last time I happened to be assigned the Thursday of Ascension Day for a devotional was 2023, and you can read that devotional here if you like.)

The Ascension, while clearly a Biblical event, isn’t necessarily the first thing that might trip off your lips if you were introducing important Christian feasts. Christmas and Easter, sure. Epiphany, Ash Wednesday, Lent, Holy Week, Pentecost—they all might occur to you before you came up with this one. Nevertheless, in addition to providing the climax of the book of Luke and the opening of the book of Acts, it formed a crucial part of early Christian preaching.

And what I discovered while researching the history of the feast was that, originally, the early Christians celebrated this event together with Pentecost. On the same day they remembered both Christ’s ascending to be with his Father and the Holy Spirit descending on the gathered believers as reported in Acts 2. After all, Jesus’s last speech to the disciples before he ascended clearly connected the two events; he was going to leave his friends, but it would not be long before they received power from on high (Acts 1:5, 8), and that power would change their lives.

Eventually, as the church became legalized and its worship more public and systematic, believers gave Ascension a day all its own. But this strange and beautiful story doesn’t occur in a vacuum. It comes as the culmination of Jesus’ many post-resurrection appearances to his friends and followers throughout Eastertide, and it sets the stage for the powerful change that is coming next.

When I wrote about this story two years ago, I was fascinated by the disciples’ desire to stand around staring into the sky after Jesus instead of getting on with their mission. This time, the phrase that really stuck with me was the description of that mission: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

In our globally connected world, we have a temptation to focus on how easy it is to take the Gospel “to the ends of the earth”—and truly, it was remarkable that Jesus’s followers set out to do just that and eventually visited much of the world they knew. But let’s not be too quick to skip over the first two steps. The disciples had been waiting in Jerusalem for the “promise of the Father.” Where were they supposed to start spreading the message they had been empowered to give? Jerusalem. And so, as Acts 2 proves, they proceeded to do just that.

In a time full of turmoil, in a world full of trouble, I have found the most heartening thing I can do to follow the ascended Jesus is to start right here, right now, in my own hometown, seeking to bring reconciliation and to do justice in the power of the Spirit. If you too are wondering how to follow him in these days, look around you for a place to start.

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: Missional Community (Acts 1:6).