YOU ARE MY WITNESSES

“After giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.
He presented himself alive to them by many proofs after he had suffered,
appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.
When they asked him, ‘Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?’,

Jesus answered, ‘It is not for you to know the times that the Father has established by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’” Acts 1: 3, 6-8

“Jesus said to his disciples:  ‘Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature. Drive out demons, speak new languages, lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”. . . They went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.” Mark :16:15, 17-18, 20

So Jesus is saying that the Kingdom will be restored but not until later and, in the meantime, the Apostles have a job to do. Scripture scholar NT Wright, in Surprised by the God of Hope, paraphrases it this way, “You eleven apostles plus friends are to be equipped by the Spirit to take this essentially Jewish message of me as Messiah and Lord out to the ends of the world.” And then NT Wright turns to us and says,

“Jesus is parting from them visibly – until his final return. And, we, like his apostles and disciples, are now living in a great long period in which we have a job to do. And, at the end of our work, Jesus will come back, joining heaven and earth visibly and forever. That’s the promise and with that, there is the promise that we are now living in this extraordinary time before his coming, but already under His authority.”

So, “we have a job to do.”  We are “already” (That means “right now.”) under Jesus’ authority” in performing this job  – of “taking this essentially Jewish message of Me as Messiah and Lord out to the ends of the world.”

PRAY THAT YOU WILL BE OPEN TO RECEIVING AND SPREADING THIS GOOD NEWS

Are we, you and I, 100% into this? Are we asking Jesus, the “authority” under which we are supposedly working to turn this world back to what God intended – helping as much as is needed from us to align things as God intended? How into this are we? Are we asking Jesus and the other baptized persons around us what more we can do?  Are our communal efforts toward this as important to us as our efforts to keeping our town, our houses and our lawns looking good?

When was the last time you or I were a Peter doing what we can to drive out the demons we hear about in the news, laying hands on the physically, psychologically and emotionally sick, speaking in Jesus’ tongue to apply the remedies of Jesus’ authority to prepare our world for Christ’s Second Coming?

Jesus says to us, his disciples:  Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature. Drive out demons, speak new languages, lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.

Sister Loretta