Da Jesus Guys

       Read Acts 1:1-11 from the Hawaiian Pidgin New Testament

       The title of the Book of Acts in Da Jesus Book is Jesus Guys Wat Dey Den Do.  But dats notta good nem.  It should be What Da Boss Den Do.  Because this book isn’t about the acts of the Apostles or even some of the acts of some of the Apostles.  It’s about what Jesus did to create the church even after He returned to heaven.   

       I want you to note how Luke, the writer of the Book of Acts, makes this clear.  Luke, of course, is also the author of the gospel that bears his name.  And now, here at the beginning of the book of Acts he refers to his gospel in a very interesting way: “In the first book, O Theopolis, I wrote all that Jesus began both to do and to teach.” 

       Note the careful way Luke phrases that.  He says that in his gospel he wrote about the things that Jesus began to do and teach.  He uses that special verb tense because he wants us to know that the gospel is not over.  Luke wants us to see the book of Acts as the record of the things Jesus continues to do and teach through His church.  He is telling us that Acts is more gospel because Acts continues to record of the ministry of Jesus Christ to the world.  The only difference is that Jesus is now doing his work through people He has called and empowered.

       Isn’t that an amazing thought?  It means that the account of the ministry of Jesus Christ is still being written.  It doesn’t end with the end of John and it doesn’t end with the close of Acts.  It continues in every place and in every century where Jesus moves through His people.

      This also means that our own presence here today is also a part of the gospel story.  We too have been saved and brought together as a family by our own encounter with Jesus Christ.  It’s no different for us that it was for our fellow believers in the first century.  We, just as much as they, are part of the things Jesus continues to do and teach.  We too are a part of the gospel story.

       What does the future hold for us as a church?  We can’t say for sure.  I’m sure there will be lots of surprises.  But we can say for sure what we are called to do because Jesus is very, very clear about what He expects.

       Luke tells us that after the resurrection Jesus spends forty days with His Disciples.  The first thing He does is convince them that He’s really Himself.  Luke says: “He showed Himself alive by many convincing or infallible proofs.”  You see, they need to know that they aren’t experiencing a mass hallucination or a generalized wish fulfillment.  They need to know that it’s really Jesus of Nazareth, who is sending them out.  This is important.

       Jesus didn’t just give His people certain ideas or precepts that they were then to carry into the world.  He gave them Himself.  He appeared to them as the One who had risen from the dead. 

       They knew Jesus had died.  Some of them had stood at the cross.  They had heard the blow of the hammers.  They had seen the nails driven and then later, when the soldiers came, had seen the spear thrust into His side.  They knew Jesus had died.  In fact, they are so convinced of his death that they soon begin to scatter and go home, because  -- well, although it was nice to have known Jesus, He was dead now and to give one’s life a mere memory would be foolish.

       But then Jesus rose and began to appear to them.  They would never have come back together for a philosophy or mythology.  They come together because the Jesus Christ they had known and loved is alive.  He has conquered death.  He’s proved it.

       Thomas was the greatest of the skeptics.  Even after the resurrection, when the other disciples had seen Christ and had come to Thomas to proclaim the resurrection, Thomas said, “Unless I see the nail marks in His hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe it.”  Then Jesus appeared to Thomas.  Thomas fell before Him with the confession, “My Lord and my God”. 

       This is what Luke has in mind when he writes of “convincing proofs.”  He is saying, “In this book, I am going to chart the spread of Christianity, but I want you to know at the very beginning that this is a religion based on historical facts, including even the amazing fact of the resurrection.  The resurrection has been demonstrated by many convincing proofs, and it is proof of everything else that needs proving.”

       Luke then tells us that Jesus taught them “things concerning the kingdom of God .”  Then Jesus makes a promise -- the promise of the baptism of the Holy Spirit to empower them, teach them and straighten out their heads.

       Bruddas and sistas, let me tell ya.  Their heads need an overhaul!  Jesus has just spent forty after coming back from death teaching them about the kingdom of God .  And here’s how they respond: “Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the kingdom to Israel ?”

       This question reveals how, even after three years with Jesus, these disciples are still caught up in the popular idea of the Messiah -- that the Messiah is God’s tool to restore the physical nation of Israel to freedom, fortune and glory.  Remember how, before the crucifixion, da Jesus guys had been jockeying for places of power in the restored nation.  And their question now, after the resurrection, shows how much they still want to make Jesus fulfill these expectations.  They’re still not on His agenda.  They want Jesus to fulfill their goals. 

       With their Acts 1:6 question, it is almost like they are saying  something like:  “This crucifixion and this resurrection were interesting.  We never saw that one coming.  But now its time for you to get going on the important stuff.  It’s time for you to get the Romans out of our land.”

       In asking their question, the disciples show that they are still mentally stuck at Palm Sunday.  They haven’t yet moved on to Good Friday and Easter. For their Acts 1:6 concept of the Messiah was the theme of what happened on Palm Sunday.

       As Jesus entered the City of Jerusalem it became a political demonstration.  The gospels tell us that the people stripped palm branches off of the trees to wave at Jesus.  They cried “Hosanna to the Son of David.”

       Why palm branches?  Why “Hosanna?”

       Well the palm branches are a symbol of the Hasmonean ruling family which was established by the Maccabees after the Syrian wars.  The Hasmoneans were the last rulers of independent Israel before the coming of the Romans.  You can see the symbol of the palm branch on Hasmonean coins.  So the people wave palm branches to greet Jesus as their rightful ruler –in place of the Romans and in place of the Roman puppet Herods.

       Why “Hosanna?”  Hosanna means “Lord save!” – not save us from our sins but save us from our corrupt earthly rulers – from our position of political and military weakness.  “Lord, at this time will you restore the kingdom to Israel ?”  That’s a great Palm Sunday question.  But the fact that the Disciples are still asking this same question in Acts 1 shows that even after the resurrection the Jesus guys are living back in Palm Sunday.  They still believe that all that has happened is for the fulfillment of their own narrow, national agenda.  At this point they would have loved the headline I saw I in Munich last week about “ Israel panzers in Lebenon.”  Talk about power.   Even as they walk with the risen Christ, this is what they believe.  They think God’s purpose is tied in with the physical success of a particular nation rather than something that ignores and transcends national boundaries. 

       Jesus’ disciples are wearing some filters over their eyes that won’t be knocked off until the gift of the Holy Spirit to teach them Pentecost.  These filters are so strong that even the events of the cross and the resurrection have been grafted onto the root of their nationalistic aspirations.

       They will continue to have this narrow view of God’s agenda until God opens their eyes.  The Disciples will only understand what really happened on Good Friday and Easter when God opens their minds to a new way of seeing.  He sent them the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost as recorded in Acts 2.  Then they learn more in 30 minutes than they had learned in 3 years with Jesus.

       Without the Spirit we don’t have the power, the frame of reference to really understand what Jesus did on the cross and what He showed in the empty tomb. 

       It’s like an 8 year old boy who just loves ice cream and hates kissing.  To him, ice cream is far and away the greatest thing in the world.  The one day his fifteen year old brother tells him about the joy of having a girlfriend – about how being in love and kissing is the greatest thing in the world.  The eight year old boy listens patiently to everything his brother says.  Then he asks, “There is one thing I don’t understand.  When does the ice cream come in?”

       That’s what I mean by a need to change the frame of reference.  It’s not that there is nothing better than ice cream.  It’s simply that at 8 you don’t have the frame of reference to understand anything better.  To the disciples, restoring the kingdom to Israel has to fit in somewhere – just as ice cream has to fit in somewhere to the 8 year old.

       Now it is interesting in verse 7, that Jesus’ answer is not a direct “no.”  He just tells them that the fulfillment of the divine purpose for Israel , whatever form that takes, is none of their business.  They have more important things to do that to sit around trying to figure out the date of the second coming or the place of physical Israel in God’s plan.  “It is not for you to know the times the Father has set by His own authority.”

       They have more important things to do.  We do too. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.  You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria , and even to the remotest parts of the Earth.”

       Those are their marching orders and ours. 

       And having given us our orders, Jesus leaves…for now.  He is received into the Shekinah, the glory cloud which is the sign of the presence of God.  Then two angels appear to the disciples who are standing gaping at the sky.  “Men of Galilee .  Why do you stand looking into the sky?  This same Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come again in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.”  Once again Jesus will break from that world into this…out of eternity into time and history.   The angels stress His identity:  “This same Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come again.”  In other words, Jesus of Nazareth, the Jesus of history, hasn’t disappeared to be replaced by some sort of “Christ consciousness.”  The Jesus who is coming back is the same Jesus you know.

       Jesus has just been lifted out of sight.  Then the angels appear and chide the people who are there for being amazed at what has happened:  “Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking into the sky?”  That’s harsh.  After all, if or Janet Kristin were to suddenly rise in the air and ascend through the church ceiling at the end of the service, we would all be inclined to look upward in amazement!  And we wouldn’t want any angels busting our chops.

       I think these angels need some sensitivity training or a seminar on dealing with humans. 

       But even so, the angel has a point.  For forty days after the resurrection, Jesus kept appearing, disappearing and reappearing.  But now this interim period is over.  This time His departure is final.  So they aren’t to wait around for His next appearance.  Instead, they are to wait for somebody else, the Holy Spirit. For He will come only after Jesus has gone, and then they can get on with their mission in the power and insight the Spirit will give them.

       The angels know that there is something fundamentally misguided about their gazing up into the sky when they have been commissioned to go to the ends of the earth.  It is the earth not the sky which is to be our preoccupation.  Our calling is to be witnesses not stargazers.  The vision we need to cultivate is not upwards in nostalgia to the heaven which had received Jesus, but outwards in compassion to a lost world which needs Him.  Curiosity about heaven and its occupants, speculation about prophecy and its fulfillment, an obsession with ‘times and seasons’ – these are aberrations that distract us from our God-given mission.  Christ will come personally, visibly, gloriously.  He doesn’t need our help. He will come back as He went.     Other details can wait. 

       Meanwhile, we have work to do in the power of the Spirit.  We need neither wait nor look into the sky, because that for which the apostles waited – the Holy Spirit’s outpouring – is a reality now!   We have the Spirit.  We are witnesses for Jesus!  So let’s stop dreaming and get on with the job!

       We are told later in Chapter 1 that the number of the disciples was about 120 including Jesus’ mother Mary and His brothers or, in the original pidgin, “da wahines and Jesus’ mudda Mary, an His bruddas.”

       That fact is one of the most challenging and uplifting things in the entire New Testament. 

       At the end of Jesus three year ministry, there are only 120 pledged to Christ.  It is very unlikely that any of them had ever been outside the narrow confines of Palestine . 

       Since there were about 4,000,000 Jews in Palestine , this means that fewer that 1 in 33,000 were Christians. 

        On the same basis it would be as if you were the only Christian in Moorpark.  You would be all on your own with a city to win.  You would be one of   24 Christians in Ventura County , one of a thousand Christians in California , one of only 9,000 Christians in the United States . 

         Jesus says that that’s where it starts.  It starts small to get big – just like the mustard seed.  These 120 simple people are told to go out and evangelize the whole world.  If ever anything ever grew huge from small beginnings the Christian Church did. 

       In the same way, we may well be the only Christians in our factory, our office, in our circle of friends.

       Jesus call to us is still the same.  Dese Jesus guys and dese Jesus wahines gallantly faced their task and so must we.  It may be that we too will be the small beginning from which the kingdom in our place will spread and grow.  Jesus is coming back so let’s get going.