In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” (Acts 1,1-11)
Dear Brothers and Sisters, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
This is the end. The second end. We have heard of the end twice. The last time we’ve heard of the end was on Good Friday. Now, over 40 days after the end we hear of the second end. And it is a different end.
The first end we had heard about was death – Jesus dying on the cross. There is barely anything more disturbing than this definite end. “Of our elaborate plans, the end. Of everything that stands, the end. No safety or surprise, the end. I’ll never look into your eyes again.” This is how Jim Morrison put it in the 1960s. That one end that doesn’t provide any space for a continuation. It is neither a finish nor a goal nor the conclusion of anything. It’s just the end. That one end doesn’t make sense but takes all sense away. The end that can’t be characterized any further than just being the end. Not only the end but everybody’s end, our end, my end. We have heard about this end on a day with the strange name “Good Friday”. As if calling this day of the definite end “Good” would make the end less frightening. Maybe some of us think: That was Jesus’ death, not mine. Humans tend to feel invincible, immortal even. Everyone else might die, but I won’t – as long as I live.
We have heard of Jesus entering the end where nothing made sense anymore. What does that actually mean: to make sense? We use this expression in our everyday language quite often. It makes or doesn’t make sense what a person did or said. It makes or doesn’t make sense what we see on the news. What we don’t understand does not make sense. If we want something to make sense, we need to be able to relate to it. We need to have an immediate relationship with it. We have to be able to think about what we experience in a way that makes it understandable for us. Everything else does not make sense. Good Friday doesn’t make sense, death doesn’t make sense as the end of our understanding takes every sense away.
That’s why so many people feel like they were immortal – our understanding doesn’t allow us to get hold of the end. Some people become afraid because of that, others just acknowledge that they can’t understand. But most people don’t care at all. Ignorance is bliss. To them life is just about living and not about dying. But that doesn’t match reality. Life ist about both: living and dying. You can’t have one without the other.
Now, when we talk in church, we mostly talk about death not being the end. The end not being the end anymore – that makes even less sense than the end being the end. But this is basically what the early witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection tell us: The definite end is neither definite nor the end. With this said we’re talking about a reality which truly goes beyond our understanding. Not only our understanding but also the understanding of the disciples of Jesus. Their eyes and their ears and their hands disagreed with what they had always known about life and everything. Because the resurrection of Jesus had changed everything.
In the reading of Acts we have heard of a second end which is quite different from the first end. It’s rather the open ending of a story than a definite end. The definite end has become an open ending. Again, Jesus is gone, but neither is he definitely gone nor is him being gone the end of all understanding. Luke tells us that there is a time of 40 days between the suffering of Jesus and the end of which we have heard today. The New Testament tells us amazingly little about this time. Usually the evangelists just sum everything up, just as Luke does. He writes: “After his suffering, Jesus presented himself to the disciples and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.”
Besides proving that he is alive Jesus did nothing different from what he did before he had died. He ate with his disciples and he spoke about the kingdom of God. But what a difference must this have been for them! What had seemed to be a mere idealistic dream before his resurrection now has become a promise worth trusting in. The kingdom will come just as Jesus has risen from death. One day God’s love and peace will take over all creation.
The second ending is by no means an end anymore. It opens up the gates to a new reality where there is no end anymore. It figures that this second ending of the works of the risen Jesus on earth is the very beginning of the book of the acts of the apostles. The ascension of Jesus shows to his disciples that he is the ruler of the world, of our hearts and minds. Jesus takes over his heavenly throne again, seated at the right hand of the father. Neither death nor sin rule the world anymore as they did when humans could only rely on their own understanding to make sense of this world. Jesus now rules the world as he has defeated death and sin by his resurrection.
There is no power anymore which can take sense away when it is God who makes sense. Neither death nor suffering nor fear nor greed. Our understanding has ceased to be the criterion for what makes sense because God makes the sense. The world in which God makes sense is depicted in the acts of the apostles. Moreover, the apostles who receive the Holy Spirit on Pentecost depict the people to whom God makes sense. And what they say and do is supposed to show how those people speak and act to whom God makes sense.
Jesus leaving his disciples for a second time doesn’t leave them helpless or hopeless again. When Jesus left to return to his father he ate with them. He gave them the promise of the Holy Spirit and while they were still looking at the spot in the sky where he had disappeared, two angels told them about Jesus’ return. It is these two that made the apostles proclaim the good news to the world: Firstly, the Holy Spirit which made them understand the gospel, not only with their minds but with their hearts. Secondly, the firm belief of Jesus returning to the world. The return of Jesus makes the apostles take the responsibility for rescuing all people from the rule of death. Not in a way that death was still ruling, but because people still act as though death was still ruling and not acknowledging the new reality in which they were now living in.
In this new reality life is not just the desperate attempt to live anymore. But true life has become joy and everlasting expectation and hope. It is about expecting the kingdom of God to come and about expecting Jesus to return. It is about expecting the Holy Spirit to touch the hearts of every being and about expecting to live in the presence of God. What the apostles did and what Christians do today comes from the firm expectations they had and have. They take these expectations from the open ending of which we have heard today in the story of the Ascension of Jesus Christ.
Probably we still do not understand what all this is about: Jesus dying and rising, Jesus teaching and eating, Jesus ascending and returning. That doesn’t match with what we know about the world, therefore we can’t make any sense of that with all our understanding. Only God can make sense of that. This is what we have to rely on firmly by everything we say or do. This is the beginning.
And the peace of God, our hopes and expectations which transcend all human understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.