Powerful

Acts 1:6-14

It’s the end of the story.

You can tell, because all the characters are standing on the stage, looking up into the sky, waiting for the heavenly credits to roll.

It’s the Ascension.

It’s the last big moment in the narrative of Jesus’ life.  The last of his face-to-face interactions with his disciples.  It happens forty days after the Resurrection. And it’s the first story we heard today:

Jesus gathers the disciples on a hill outside the city of Jerusalem.  They ask him about how the story is supposed to end – Now are you ready to restore the rule of God to our nation? Are we there yet?? – and Jesus being Jesus,  he doesn’t answer that question.

No, you won’t know when, or exactly what God is doing about that. But I’ve got a job for you – you are to be my witnesses.

(Jesus always does that, darn it! You ask a simple question, you get a gospel chore.)

And then, while they’re still soaking up this latest assignment, the story ends.

Jesus is lifted up, embraced in cloud (an obvious indication of divine intervention), and the disciples are left staring into heaven, eyes raised, watching the credits roll, and wondering if they’re satisfied with the end of the story.

They get called on it.

Never mind that Jesus is gone, God still finds ways to nudge us into doing our jobs.

“Stop staring into heaven,” say two angels, messengers who just happen by.

“Jesus is gone, Jesus is coming. The story’s over, yes, but wait for the next one.”

So the disciples stop watching the clouds, and go back to Jerusalem to pray.

You see, that’s actually the beginning of the story.

It’s the beginning of the story we’ll tell next week, when we celebrate the feast of Pentecost, and the gift of the Holy Spirit:  that somewhat more famous story where the disciples all find themselves on fire to preach the gospel in every language of the known world.

Today, though, is where that story begins: this disappearance of Jesus with a promise, and an assignment.

Listen again to what Jesus says when the disciples ask him about the end of the story:
“…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

You will receive power.

You – hey, you; yes YOU.

You will receive power,

You will be my witnesses, tell my story, begin the gospel story, at home and abroad to all the ends of the earth.

YOU. Me, too. We become powerful people. Powerful enough to change the ends of the earth. And that’s the just the beginning of the story.

Are you used to thinking of yourself as a powerful person?

Show of hands – if  you wake up in the morning and assume that you’re a powerful person.

I don’t wake up that way, and honestly, a lot of the time I feel more helpless than powerful. But I am powerful. So are you. We just forget.

So I got some help to remember that power from my friends on the internet, including some of you, and this is what we remembered:

You have power to listen, and make others’ voices heard.

Power to change someone’s day with something as simple as eye contact and a smile.

Some of us have power to shape infants and young people into adults we are proud to have in the world.  Or power to create life.

We have power to share our joy, and our grief – and both can change the world.

You have power to heal, or encourage, or welcome, or build, or brighten, or nurture, or invent, or teach in the use of your unique gifts and talents.

You may have power to run, leap, dance; you certainly have power to display the amazing grace of your body, and power to create stillness. 

Power to organize, to speak, to choose.

You have – I have – the power to forgive.  And won’t that change the world, when we exercise our power!

You have power behind the wheel of a car; in your voter registration card.

Power in your hands with matches, and pens or keyboards,

and every day you choose how to use that power, over and over.

All those things add up to the power to change lives, whether you know it or not,

and the power to change the world.

So, do you think of yourself as a powerful person now?

You should.

You are.

Some of that power is born into, or earned by, each of us.

Some of it is God’s power, though.

God’s power, entrusted to us; and your own power, multiplied by the Holy Spirit:

We become powerful people, you and I, because the gospel needs to spread to the ends of the earth, and to all the little cul-de-sacs and neighborhoods in between.

Right now, listen to your heart, and to the Holy Spirit, and write down or draw the power that you have.

You have power.  Name it.

Anyone want to share?

Now that you know your power, what will you do with it?

Write that down, too.

Hang on to what you wrote, or what you drew.  Tuck it in your wallet; hang it on your fridge.  Because you need to remember your power; remember God’s power, in you.

Remember, and use your power.

Because that’s why Jesus left, back at the end of the story.

If Jesus never leaves, there’s no need for us.

And God needs us, needs you, wants us to receive power, to be powerful, and to live the gospel story in Jerusalem, and Judea, and Samaria, in Lombard and Chicago and “downstate,” and all the ends of the earth.

That brings us again to the beginning of the story.

The beginning of the gospel story, our gospel story, the story that begins as the Holy Spirit comes and we recognize that God’s already given us power.

Real, godly, power, from here unto the ends of the earth.

This story begins with the question: What are you going to do with that power?

So let’s begin.