Final Instructions
When [Jesus] had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Luke 24:50-51
After the resurrection, Jesus appeared to the disciples over a period of forty days, opening their minds to what the Scriptures said about him and about the kingdom of God. One day, he led them to the vicinity of Bethany, to the Mount of Olives.
“Then they gathered around him and asked him, ‘Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?’” (Acts 1:6-7). They were aware that something was about to happen. They knew the many Old Testament prophecies describing the spiritual and national restoration of Israel. Would that happen now that Jesus had risen from the dead?
But he said to them, “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:7-8).
Next on God’s agenda would be sending the Holy Spirit who would come live inside them. Then they would go out as they had earlier “in Jesus’s name” to witness, heal, work miracles (Luke 10:1-24). They would make disciples, teaching all that Jesus had commanded (Matthew 28:18-20). This time they would go to the ends of the earth.
When he had given these final instructions, he lifted his hands as their High Priest and blessed them. And right before their eyes, he was lifted up until a cloud took him out of their sight (Acts 1:9).
They stood there staring at the cloud. A miracle had just happened. During the forty days since the resurrection, Jesus had appeared and disappeared. This was different.
Suddenly, two men dressed in white appeared and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1:10-11).
They hurried back to Jerusalem, changed men: men with a mission, full of joy, worshiping Jesus the Christ. Fearlessly, they went to the temple praising God (Luke 24:52-53).
I’m glad God calls us to bear witness too: the message of the Christ who suffered and died for our sins and rose again.
Do you have a mission? Do you bear witness of Christ’s message of redemption?
DIG DEEPER:
The same man wrote the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts. Compare the ending of Luke: 24:36-53 and Luke’s continuation in Acts 1:1-11. What’s the same, what’s different in his accounts of the ascension? How is Matthew’s account different in chapter 28:16-20?
The warning Jesus gave his disciples (Acts 1:7-8) could be applied to the church in all ages: we have been told many things through prophecy, but we can’t expect exact dates or details. Which of the warning signs in Matthew 24:33-50 would apply to us?
The men in white (angels) told the disciples Jesus would return the same way he left. What else will happen on the event called “the Day of the Lord,” in the Old Testament, a prophecy of Christ’s return, according to Zechariah 14:1-11?
Nancy J. Baker
This devotion is part of a series, Miracles of the Messiah.