Luke uses Jesus' Ascension as an occasion for
Him to give final instructions to His disciples (Acts 1:1-11).
Jesus is specific in what He expects of them:
"You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you
will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judaea and Samaria, and to the
ends of the earth."
One need only page through the remainder of the
Acts of the Apostles to discover that Jesus' followers will adhere perfectly
to His geographic plan. After Pentecost, they'll preach the word first in
Jerusalem, evangelizing people in the immediate Judaean area.
Philip will then travel to Samaria, and Paul
eventually will arrive in Rome, proclaiming the good news as a prisoner of
the Empire. With his proclamation in the world's capitol, the Word will have
its witnesses at the "end of the earth." Nothing can stop what
Jesus and His Spirit have planned.
Making it fit
Of course, Luke writes from an advantageous
position: He composed Acts almost 50 years after Jesus' Ascension. When one
narrates a prediction long after the actual foretelling, there's always a
temptation to squeeze the words into what historically happened.
We old-timers remember how this happened in
April 1968, immediately after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. Some
reporters claimed that he'd actually predicted his demise during a talk he
delivered the night before. But, after tapes of that address were played, we
found out that King hadn't been that specific about the time and place of
his death. He had simply referred to his "mountaintop" experience,
something that removed any fear of what could happen to him in the future.
It was next day's horrible event which led
people to turn a general comment into a specific prediction.
Unfortunately, most of us aren't privy to
specifics about the way Jesus wants us to live our faith. We have His
general instructions but little else to go on. These instructions are
similar to those Paul shares in the second reading for Sunday (Ephesians
4:1-13): "Live in a manner worthy of the call you have received with
all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through
love, striving to preserve the unity of the Spirit through the bond of
peace."
Paul expects the Holy Spirit to help us develop
the specifics of building a loving unity. We're not provided in advance with
a divine road map.
New ending
Though Mark seems to agree with Paul, it takes
some "scriptural sophistication" to surface his agreement. Unless
you have good footnotes in your Bible, you'd think the evangelist ends his
Gospel with Sunday's passage (Mark 16:15-20). Yet, scholars realized these
verses didn't come from Mark. He actually ended his Gospel in verse 8 with
the comment that the women ran away from the tomb saying nothing to anyone.
Such an ending must have been too abrupt for
some readers and scribes, so they created other endings. Sunday's section
was obviously constructed by a person who had a copy of Acts in front of him
or her. It's a summary of some of the famous events in that writing.
If we go back to Mark's original ending, we're
left simply with the angel's message that the risen Jesus is "out
there," waiting to appear to His followers. Except for mentioning
apparitions to take place in Galilee -- the place where the disciples lived
-- there was nothing more specific.
How fascinating it is to live a life in which
the risen Jesus can surface in any form at any time and place. Too much
specificity can take (and has taken) lots of excitement out of living a
Christian life.
(5/25/06)