Preaching the Scriptures

T he Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Acts 1:1-14   Hard to Believe Good Shepherd, Elizabethtown   It was hard to believe.   And they were standing right there, watching it happen.   They thought that Jesus might finally settle down, after everything, but instead he was going up.   And there was no stopping him.   Before their very eyes, he was lifted up, beyond their reach, beyond their words, beyond any feeble attempt to reason with him, or beg him to stay.   There was nothing they could do but watch him go.   And that is exactly what they did: they just stood there staring, stunned silent, mouths agape, angels lecturing and shouting instructions.   They likely arrived on the scene with some preconceived notion, some sense of expectation.   But they were not expecting this.   It was just so hard to believe.   But for the disciples, this was nothing new.   Not really.   Jesus had this tendency to surprise...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Acts 1:6-14 Look Lower Well, if we learned one thing from Acts today, it is this: some angels cannot read a room. These snarky angels are pretty insensitive. While the disciples stand by, all dazed and heartbroken, these two men in white robes suddenly appear, not to console them, but to challenge them: “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” The angels know why, at least they should. The disciples' eyes are glued to the very spot in the heavens that just devoured Jesus and his cloud car. And the disciples are trying to keep their eyes on Jesus. See, that has been a pretty difficult task in recent weeks. They already lost him once; they did not want to do that again. But now he is out of sight, gone – for the second time in just six weeks. Once again they were powerless to stop him. And now all they have left is a limitless, empty sky. The second goodbye stinging their eyes even as the first wounds are still fresh in t...

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson Acts 1:6-14   Our Witness is Our One-ness Caught in between time is how you might describe them.    This indefinite wait between two ages.    After Jesus and before whatever was next.    For us, gazing back in time, the time in between those two events, between the Ascension and Pentecost is just ten days.    Not terribly long.    But for those disciples who watched Jesus go, the waiting might have been forever.   There was no time-table.   He never said. Jesus rose out of sight and they just kept staring into what was, eventually, just sky - the same sky that has always been.    Just sky; no Jesus.    Just them; no Jesus.    Just time; and no idea what would happen next or when it would happen. The first thing that happens post-Ascension is that they are questioned, maybe corrected, by the suddenly-appearing men in white.    That pro...