From Him to Us
Since the first Sunday after Easter, we have been exploring and explaining the resurrection experiences contained in our Gospel writings – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Why? So we may be better prepared for Pentecost and our celebration of the arrival of the Holy Spirit into our hearts and, through those hearts, into the world. We’ve been traveling on the “Luke-Acts” timeline for Pentecost, looking for the Spirit to arrive on the fiftieth day after Easter Sunday. That’s next Sunday, May 24th, Memorial Day weekend, the beginning of summer and a new season of the church.
And this morning, we are finishing the lessons so we may begin the life … again. Pray with me: Spirit of Glory, Spirit of God, bless us with your word of life this day to restore, support, and strengthen us as we seek to be One with you. Amen.
Last week we examined the Walk to Emmaus story for the umpteenth time in our lives of faith and discovered something new again: The resurrection experiences we have, the burning hearts that are within us when we pay attention to what is right in front of our eyes, are shared by others. When the two travelers in that story recognized the stranger in their midst as one of God’s children, one of God’s anointed, Christ, then the “stranger” disappeared. Might we understand that to be telling us that there are no strangers in the Kin-dom of God, where all are seen as children of God? When we entertain that notion, then our hearts burn, and we experience the Jesus of history alive in the Christ of faith. When the two in the Emmaus story experienced this, they ran to tell the others, and found out the others had discovered the same thing! The Way of Jesus is not dead, because we have been given new life – a new way of seeing others and experiencing the world. The resurrection experiences we have, the burning hearts that are within us when we pay attention to what is right in front of our eyes, are shared by others. At the very least by the others here this morning. That’s why we’re here. And a new kind of community is formed.
We are one step away from Holy Fire and Holy Spirit this morning. And Jesus comes to us one more time in the Gospel sharings of his resurrection appearances. Immediately after the two who were walking to Emmaus gave up on that journey and ran back to Jerusalem, found the “eleven and their companions”, and realized they, too, were discovering how alive the Way of Jesus still was, still is, even after his death … Jesus appears to all of them one last time.
(Turn to Luke 24:36ff …) “Peace be with you,” he says, first thing. But, still … still, still, still we read that “they were startled and terrified, and thought they were seeing a ghost”! C’mon, disciples!!
I’m going to choose to believe that this is the writer of Luke telling us that it’s normal to have reservations, to wonder, to question all that is happening to us in this seismic shifting of values – even after it’s happened a lot. That doubt is not the opposite of faith. That it is okay to ask questions that seek deeper understanding. So, Jesus proves to them again that he is not a “ghost” and, using the language and the imagery that was best understood to women and men in the first century, that all this is real! “Touch me and see.” “Give me something to eat and watch me eat it.” This is happening!!
And it’s only after all of this that Jesus begins finalizing his departure, saying to them …
Read Luke 24:44-49.
“These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46 and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah[a] is[b] to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses[c] of these things. 49 And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised, so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
The Gospel of Luke, volume one of this writer’s magnus opus (volume two being the Acts of the Apostles) is coming to an end. Luke’s Gospel, however, ends not with a summary of Jesus’ ministry, but with a transition to the church’s ministry, to our ministry. These final verses foreshadow the growth of the church in the book of Acts. And we’ll make that jump in the week ahead and gather in this place next week to receive all we really need to get busy transforming the world. Next week, our hearts and souls will be on fire. This morning, they are ignited.
Throughout the Gospels, most particularly in Mark, but a part of all our Gospels, it is a “lack of understanding” that characterizes the followers of Jesus. We’re “constantly amazed,” and “wondering what this could mean,” and “not grasping what was said.” But here … “our minds are opened to understand”, verse forty-five. And repentance that leads to forgiveness of sin – the “turning around” or “returning” that leads to reunion with God, found in verse forty-seven, will serve as the whole summary of the Acts narrative, where it is the core of any Apostle’s teaching in that book – beginning in Jerusalem and spreading to all nations: Go out and turn people around so they, too, may find God – Love, hope, joy, and promise – in their lives, right in front of their eyes.
“You … are witnesses to all these things!” Jesus says.
That’s a title – witness to all these things. That’s us. That’s who these first apostles were and who we are today. This title is not found anywhere else in Luke’s Gospel, but it is everywhere used as a designation of the Apostles in Luke’s book of Acts. God’s story told in all of Scripture, continued through Jesus, and will continue still in the work of those who follow him – his disciples, you and I, the church today.
In this moment, in this transitional week, our eyes are opened to see the power of God that takes the worst the world can do and transforms it into a witness of redemptive forgiveness through the power of Love. Jesus is the incarnation of God, of Love, not because he has the power to condemn and destroy. (And boy don’t some want that to be so. Christ on a stallion, flaming sword and final judgment.) But condemnation and destruction are not a part of who Christ is or what Christianity is. And anyone who tells you it is are “anti-Christians”. Jesus and the followers of his Way are the incarnation of God, of Love, not because they have the power to condemn and destroy, but because we have the courage to forgive and love. This morning we are supposed to recognize that more fully than any other Sunday of the year – even more than Easter or Christmas, perhaps – because this Sunday we must finalize our readiness to receive the most fearful gift of all – the true power of God in the Love of Christ through the Holy Spirit
The challenge of this gift should be clear before we dare to receive it. That’s’ what Pastor Ashia and I have been trying to do this Eastertide – make it clear, or clearer. Because receiving this particular gift will require a complete revision of our view of ourselves, one another, and everything around us. It does not “fit” with any prevailing notion of God or God’s powers held by the rich and powerful, or the angry and fearful, of this world. The Spirit of God we receive and proclaim upends earthly understandings of power. Worldly powers and principalities reject the unifying and equalizing love God offers it through this Spirit, for more “top down” models that include marginalization and objectification of others in an attempt to maintain the privilege of a few.
We are feeling that so powerfully in our time, but this is nothing new. The breadth of God’s love and the wideness of God’s grace was a stumbling block for the very first disciples themselves and their very first missions in the Book of Acts – even them, Lord? And matters of privilege in interpreting scripture, in maintaining the doctrine and dogma of tradition, and in determining “who’s in and who’s out” have plagued the life of the church through its whole history. But this gift of the Holy, only one week away, will give us the only powers we need to be witnesses of a more excellent Way: the promise of presence and the power of Love from on high.
The first disciples accepted those gifts and waited for the Spirit to come in these verses. And as they did, Jesus’ earthly work was done … five weeks after he died. The resurrection appearances are over for us, too. It’s time for us to decide. Because, this morning ....
Read Luke 24:50-52 …
Jesus leads (us) out as far as Bethany, and, lifts up his hands, and blesses (us). 51 And while he is blessing (us), he withdraws from (us) and is carried up into heaven 52 And (we) worship him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, 53 and (we are) continually in the temple blessing God.
Luke is the only Gospel that writes about the departure of Jesus. The ascension closes the period of Jesus’ ministry and opens the period of the church’s mission. There is a blessing, the departure, a response from the witnesses – they worshipped him – and an act of obedience – they returned to Jerusalem (to wait) with great joy. Those who have received this blessing can hardly do anything other than return it, pay it forward. The church was created to continue God’s action on earth that began with Christ Jesus. For we now, are the instrument of God’s continued presence and action on earth. God’s anointed.
The end of the Gospel of Luke is not the end of the story of Jesus, but the beginning of the story of the church, the Body of Christ, you and me. How will or story begin … again? Will we accept the gifts of God, the Holy Spirit, that we now understand better than ever before? I wonder …
I wonder: What sets your souls on fire? And, how do you expect the Church, and this particular community, to involve itself in those passions?
Those are the questions for the week ahead, the Day of Pentecost, and the life beyond it. Write them down, if you dare. And come up with answers for next week and this year’s season of Pentecost. What sets your soul on fire? And how do you expect the Church to involve itself in those passions? Come back to this room next week and expect to be “clothed with power from on high” so we may be about the business of the God of Jesus Christ.
Right now, A Hymn of Glory Let Us Sing, so we may be readied for the arrival of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Reverend Joel Weible, Pastor
Pewee Valley Presbyterian Church / May 24, 2026
