Blogging toward Sunday (Acts 1:1-11; Luke 24:44-53)
In this series, authors offer reflections on the Sunday lectionary texts.
On this special day the gospel reading departs from the sequence of Fourth Gospel texts in order to make the connection between Jesus’ Lucan appearance to the disciples (34:44-53) and the narrative that begins the Book of Acts (1:1-11). The two texts together present the drama of Jesus, who departs, mandates the disciples, and promises to return.
The frame of the Acts narrative concerns Jesus’ departure and promised return. Acts 1:11 summarizes the drama concerning Jesus’ “going” (“taken up”) and Jesus’ “coming again.” This drama makes him the decisive connection between God’s habitat in heaven and the church’s zone of the earth, for he is—in heaven and on earth—the one with power and authority whom the church worships and serves. This “geographic” portrayal is an alternative rendering of what became, in the church, “two natures in one person.” The authority of Jesus in his majesty moves readily between heavenly and earthly zones, with nothing outside his governance.
