“So when Jesus and His disciples had come together, the disciples asked Jesus, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” – Acts 1:6-8
Dear Disciples of Christ,
So what do you see in the verses above? What do you hear? Personally I hear the sound of Jesus’ palm hitting his forehead (you know, the way someone does when they just can’t believe what they’re hearing). I can see Jesus looking into heaven toward the Father and shrugging slightly and shaking His head from side to side. “Really? Is that what they’ve gotten out of three years of my preaching and teaching about the Kingdom of God? They want to know about the kingdom of Israel? Hear the “slap” of His palm? See the look on His face?
With the mission accomplished by Jesus, if it was to establish Israel as a world power, I suppose that could be a good question. But Jesus established the Kingdom of God by His death and resurrection, offering a way for all people to come to the Father by Him. The disciples ought not be focused on what God was doing in establishing Israel as to focus on how the Kingdom of God would go into all the world. Oddly, some of the Thessalonians would quit their jobs in expectation Jesus was returning shortly, before you know it, before you need to shop for the next meal. Paul’s response? “If any one will not work, let him not eat.” The world is our mission!
And so, instead of sitting and waiting to see what God would do next, the disciples were to obey the commission Christ was giving them. He had accomplished salvation for ALL people. Now all people need to know the good news and those who know it must share it; disciples make disciples. Where, we might ask, is that to be done? No limiting answer can be found, simply Jerusalem (where they were located), Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth. That geographic description gives a picture of where the disciples would go and how the book of Acts is laid out. Until the Spirit came the disciples stayed in Jerusalem and made witness after he came and empowered them.
After the stoning of Stephen they were scattered into Judea and Samaria and outward until the book ends with Paul in Rome under house arrest. But the gospel could not be contained or restrained. It would be shown “to the end of the earth.” There is Paul, under arrest, under threat of death, talking about the good news of new life now and eternal life through Jesus. Everywhere He went He shared the good news.
So it was to that mission that God had called me to Queens in New York City. It was a pretty tough and dangerous neighborhood. My oldest daughter came in one night after playing outside between dinner and dessert asking, “Hey dad, what’s this?” She was holding a crack pipe and a 50 dollar bill (she had never seen either before). She had found them in a crack in a wall in the community drive behind our house. One night as I came into the same drive to put my motorcycle into the garage, I asked two guys sitting in a souped up Camaro with the hood up if they needed any help. “Nope. We’re fine, thanks.” A short while later, the same daughter came into the house saying, “Hey, Dad, there’s a guy out here with a gun.” I told her to quit kidding around. “No, really, and it’s a big one.” I called her in, went out and yelled at a guy walking up the drive with a shotgun, “Hey, what are you doing there?” (I never said I was all that smart). He turned to face me and I saw the DEA initials on his jacket, as I nodded and slipped back into the house (they were making a raid on the backs of the stores that came to the community drive at the end of our street). As mayor Koch said at the time, “If we could just put a Berlin wall around Jackson Heights (where our church was), we could stop most of the drug traffic in New York City.” Welcome to my neighborhood.
It was the setting for ministry to be done and the needs were extreme. It was not to be fled but to be engaged, to ask each person, “Hey, what are you doing?” That question needed to be asked of those who set fire to a Christmas tree at the street (after Christmas, waiting to be picked up by the garbage men). It added a pretty glow to the stain glass window during the evening service. That’s a different setting than most churches have but each church has its distinctive setting for the Word to be proclaimed. We are planted in the world to make a difference in the lives of those who live there. And that is best done by knowing them and their needs and how the gospel can be proclaimed in their language in their setting (even if it seems like the ends of the earth). We are to invite all in and we go out to the highways and byways to call them. If we don’t, our mission will end and it will be up to another community of faithful to pick up the torch and let the light of Christ shine.
As the Lutheran Book of Worship hymn (Green Hymnal #433) puts it so well:
Peace in His service,
Pastor Johnson