Prospect
The
Rev’d Robert Warren
Acts 1: 6-14
Have
you ever been nagged?
Has
somebody ever asked you more than once to do the very same thing?
The
disciples ask Jesus the same question over and over again. Two disciples on their way to Emmaus (Luke
24:21) had mentioned to their mysterious co-traveller how they “had hoped” Jesus would be the one to “redeem Israel”. Here in Acts, gathered together with their
Saviour, somebody broaches the subject one last time: “Lord,
is this the time when you will restore the Kingdom to Israel”? Behind the question are, of course, the
aspirations of a people who have been long oppressed by foreign powers and are
warm to the recurrent myth of a political Messiah - a mighty figure like King
David - who would put the foreigners out and restore a purified religion to
Israel.
Jesus
response here in Acts is both a no
and a yes. As is so often the case, they have
misunderstood the import of Jesus’ work on earth. Their question is narrow and worldly. Israel is a means, after all, and not an
end. Will Israel regain political
sovereignty or achieve preeminence over its enemies? That is not the point. The power that is promised to the disciples
is bigger and better than that. It is
altogether different.
It
is not, however, a “no”. In the
relatively short term, Jesus will redeem Israel’s task and restore, to a
remnant, the heart of Israel’s vocation which is to spread the knowledge of God
throughout the world. By defeating the
Romans? No, in fact, a comprehensive
network of Roman roads will be used to spread the Gospel through the words of
the witnesses to Christ’s resurrection to the ends of the known world. The Greek language with which the Romans
still communicate with vast swaths of their empire will be the means by which
the stories of God’s love are extended throughout that world. The friendship of God will be preached to the
ends of the earth. It will all work out
magnificently.
Much
of what we badger God about in our prayers has to do with the restoration of
what we think we’ve lost. Might God not
prompt us to look beyond a narrow path of unmet needs and recurrent short-term
hopes.
It
is a bigger and much broader road which the saints have walked.
