by Pastor Douglas Brauner

Being the People God Has Called Us to Be

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

“And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.'”
Acts 1:10-11 English Standard Version

As my way of honoring the power of Jesus’ resurrection, I thought I would read the book of Acts. I have read Acts many times, but it is interesting how I can see something new as if I’m reading it for the first time.

Maybe because of Sunday School or maybe because of movies and TV, I have pictured the appearance of the angels to the disciples following Jesus’ ascension as somehow suspended in the sky, surrounded by clouds.

That’s not how Luke recalls the account.

First, he doesn’t call them angels, though the fact that they appear in white would attest to this fact. Luke calls them men. He doesn’t say that they appeared in the sky, but they simply were present.

It is possible that the disciples had their necks stretched to the sky, looking for one more glimpse of Jesus when these men called to them. Maybe it was their voice that caused them to look down, to see them for the first time.

I see in this account not merely a picture of what happened that day but a calling to the disciples and to you and me. It was time for the disciples to be about the work for which Jesus had equipped them. In the same way, it is time for us to be about the work for which we have been called by Jesus, to use the gifts that he has given us to let the world know that he has conquered death, forgiven sins, and set us free to be the people he has declared us to be.

Copyright Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado