In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, 2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. 3 He presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.
Luke says that his first book focused on what Jesus began to do and teach certain things. But Jesus didn’t stop, even after he was taken up into heaven. Jesus continues to do and teach things until today, though now his presence is mysterious, mediated through the Word, the Sacraments, the Church – all in the power of the Spirit. Jesus’ physical absence allows for a spiritual presence.
Alongside giving orders to the 11 apostles for the gospel of King Jesus to be proclaimed, these 40 days were useful in establishing that Jesus had, in fact, risen from the dead; establishing that fact through several thoughtfully planned appearances. He presented himself alive to these witnesses. Witnesses. The Christian story is founded upon eyewitnesses; not upon those who were given a tremendous spiritual experience or who bought into dreams of a beautiful new world. Rather, the founders of Christianity were shown the Second Adam resurrected from the dead with a body that was physical, actually more solidly physical than anything we experience in this dimension – so solid that it moved through walls of our reality like a battleship’s rudder cutting through ocean waters.
Jesus’ commands to his 11 apostles, his doubling down on making sure they were convinced about his resurrection from the dead – – all had to do with his continuing to teach about the kingdom of God. If you read the gospel of Luke – pt 1 of this series – Jesus had much to say about the kingdom of God. Matthew and Mark in their gospels had this same emphasis. After Jesus was raised from the dead it was the same emphasis: the kingdom of God. The greatest Man the planet has known persistently viewed all of life through the lens of God’s kingdom. Oh, parents, that you’d do the same.
What is meant by the kingdom of God? In short, the kingdom of God is God’s multi-stage plan to re-assert his authority into the world, taking ground from his ancient enemy the devil by re-establishing the original terms of his creation, that is, God the Creator ruling the cosmos through the creation made in his image, humans. Humans who were trusting and trustworthy.
In the millennia-long unfolding of this project, Jesus’ arrival into the human race, his death and resurrection were the most significant developments in God’s kingdom coming, stripping the Devil of his authority and re-claiming God’s own. So central were the actions of Jesus to God’s kingdom coming that a person shows himself to be on the side of God’s authority or the devil’s by his response to Jesus.
4 And while staying with them he ordered [the apostles] not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
After his departure, the eleven apostles were about to assume the kingdom of God work of King Jesus – not by their dying for sins (Jesus did this once for all) nor by becoming the launching pad for a new creation that left rebellion and death behind (which what Jesus’ Resurrection was). Rather, the apostles continued Jesus’ work through testifying that these events had happened, bearing witness that they had seen them up close, explaining how these events lined up with previous advances of the kingdom of God, explaining how the kingdom will grow secretly.
So, the next stage in the kingdom’s progress, the next advancement against the dark powers which had long held power throughout the globe was going to be in declaring the gospel of the Risen, Victorious King over the powers of heaven and earth.
But before they take up this work, Jesus instructs the apostles to wait. Yes, he is finished stripping the devil of his great weapon of human guilt, he has made full atonement for sin, he has raised up over every power in heaven and earth, the renewal of all things has begun. But don’t do anything quite yet.
Because, in order for this advance to be successful, human power wouldn’t be sufficient. The apostles needed the enabling of the ancient, Holy Spirit –very God presiding over the old and new creation. Without the Spirit they would fail and thus the kingdom of God project would fail, even after the Divine Son’s great work.
Wait for the Spirit! Only the Spirit could lead them to sufficient understanding of what they were proclaiming, could give clarity of mind and speech, could make headway against the spirit of the age, could break down the high places of culture and thinking that had for centuries cast shadows over different people groups. Only the Spirit would give their hearers the assurance that what they heard from the apostles was, in fact, the Creator’s message.
They needed the Spirit for the message to be driven deeper into their own minds and habits and responses. They needed the Spirit even to realize what is needed, what is urgent. They needed the Spirit to take their inarticulate groanings over the world, the church, themselves and translate those into prayer. They needed the Spirit to keep them motivated, to make them gentle, to keep them from devolving into the same old tribalisms of the flesh, to learn, to learn and teach more deeply, to lead them into the unity in the Christ, Jesus. They needed the Spirit to unite their hearts in the middle of distraction, lesser goods.
They needed the ancient Spirit who hovered over the deep and was the agent of creation for material supply, for efficiency, for strong voices, for sound carrying, for making and singing music, for health, for everything else that the Spirit supplies when it is supplied.
The apostles needed the Spirit for their task of kingdom advance. We who follow the apostles, who aren’t exactly replicating the apostles’ work but in several ways are building upon their eyewitness accounts, we also need the Spirit…I think just as much as they did. Perhaps even more, because the world has grown older, the message has become muddied, the deceptions of the Devil are more subtle and entrenched than ever. We are in a time of great beauty and great spiritual tribulation.
If you glance down to vv. 12-14 you’ll see that, in response to the King’s instructions to wait for the promised Spirit, the 11 apostles gathered to pray. This is the way. Church, to persist in doing good work in the kingdom of God, gather to pray for the Spirit.
Please turn to Luke 11.
Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”…
In response Jesus gives them the framework of what’s called the Lord’s Prayer. But he goes on. Just as necessary to know what to pray for, it’s also necessary to know how prayers should go up: with doggedness. Let’s continue in v.5:
5 And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, 6 for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7 and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? 8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence[audacity…brazen insistence] he will rise and give him whatever he needs. 9 And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.
But then there’s the nervous, unspoken question: what will I get in the process of praying? A morose temperament? An other-worldliness? The thing I actually don’t need? No, listen to this, and we’ve arrived at the main point:
What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12 or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
Jesus says: When you ask God for help, he will give you the Holy Spirit. But [someone says] I didn’t ask for the Holy Spirit. I asked for money. I need to be able to view this situation with clarity. I need my kid to stop beclowning himself by constantly making the bad choice. I need better sleep. I need my parents to stop trifling with spirituality and make a decisive move toward Jesus. I need more Sunday School teachers ETC.
And Jesus’ reply seems to be: all in heaven and earth that you think you need and actually need can be summarized by this: you need the ancient, Creation presiding Holy Spirit. I want to quote at length the testimony of the fine Presbyterian pastor and author, Jack Miller, who came to a realization later in life after experiencing a lot of dryness and frustration in ministry. Here is what he says about what changed:
Much of the change, though, was in me and in my view of the Holy Spirit. My understanding of God and His commitment to supply the Holy Spirit was shallow and intellectualistic. I was especially afraid of anything in worship or prayer that might be emotional or what I saw as “spooky.” At bottom, it was a matter of trust. I relied heavily – sometimes almost entirely – on my mind as a Christian thinker and on my hard work as a pastor…In all this I had a naïve confidence that biblical truths clearly expressed would almost automatically change lives.
[But] increasingly, I saw myself as a desperately needy person, like the man who goes to his friend at midnight and says, ‘I have nothing’ (Luke 11:6). Before this, my problem in praying was that I had something – namely, reliance on myself, my training, my study, and my work. But the man at midnight has no bread for himself or for others. In his total need he forgets all sense of dignity. The standard translations of verse 8 speak of the man’s “persistence,” but that is hardly what the original language indicates. A better translation would be “shamelessly persistent” or even “shamelessly pushy.” Once I began to pray boldly like this man in my hunger for God and his help, he began to impart to me in a new way the presence of the Holy Spirit.
And that is the whole point of this passage that compares bread and food to the Holy Spirit. God promises in Luke 11:13: ‘If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” What came home to me with power is the centrality of the Spirit’s working for all of the Christian life and service. In my need I came to appreciate what Herman Bavinck stresses in his excellent essay “The Gift of the Spirit.” He says that all the promises of Scripture – for protection, health, daily physical bread, etc. – find their root in the one supreme promise: the commitment of the risen Christ to impart the Holy Spirit as the power force for the church in answer to prayer.
They needed the Holy Spirit, so Jesus tells the apostles to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit had not yet been sent into the world. Yes, the Holy Spirit showed up in earlier stages of the Kingdom’s advancement, but that was in a limited fashion: temporarily to fill only certain persons for specific tasks. Please turn to John 7:
37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
Before Jesus ascended to heaven, sat down at God’s right hand, was glorified, the Holy Spirit wasn’t given generally to all believers. After he was given, these image bearers who before had regularly misunderstood and were suspicious of God and who regularly spread decay and corruption into their charges… become channels of refreshment and life. The Spirit is the difference between true and lasting productivity and ultimately contributing to the grief of the world. The Presence of the Spirit is the difference between ineffective busy-ness or sloth and the fruit of gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control applied for the life of the world. It is the gift of the Spirit that moves the authority of God forward with all its order and achievement and harmony and joy and peace and righteousness.
Brothers and sisters, we are living in the last days of the old creation. In fact the new creation has already arrived in the body of Jesus and over these past 2000 years is gradually, sometimes imperceptibly, sweeping over the old. Thousands of years into the full installation of the new creation, we’ll look back at these days and call them the Last Days, the Day of Salvation, the Era of the Poured-Out Spirit.
This is a time of rich possibility. What should happen now is that in so many ways the followers of Christ are conduits of invention, good sense, creativity, courage, moral clarity, virtue, productivity, giving, thoughtfulness, patience, gentleness, meekness. But this Holy Spirit accomplishment is activated by prayer. The end of all things is at hand. Be self-controlled for the sake of prayer. Because prayer is the means by which the Heavenly Father gives us what he has already given us: the Spirit of Jesus Christ and all of his supply and ingenuity.
AMEN
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