What Good Is Authority You Don’t Know You Have?

In December 1865, the United States passed the 13th amendment to their constitution. Its purpose was to abolish slavery. At that moment legal slavery ended in the United States, but it took some time before those who were legally free experienced the freedom that was rightfully theirs. If you don’t know, you have a right, you’ll never take advantage of it and it doesn’t make any difference in your life. 

Today I want to look at the Ascension of Jesus. At the Ascension, Jesus commissions the church with authority. But there are times we forget about that authority, or where we exercise it in a way that is inconsistent with Jesus’s teachings. Jesus leaves it up to us to proclaim that his kingdom has arrived.: In Acts 1:6-11 we read

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 1:6-11, NIV

.As it turns out, this passage is heavily Laden with imagery drawn from the Old Testament prophets. And if we understand these images, we more clearly understand the authority that Jesus has given to his disciples. 

The Spirit Is Upon Us to Proclaim and to Serve

Early on in Jesus’s Ministry he reads from Isaiah’s prophecy and says that it describes what he’s doing. The section that he reads says:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,

    because the Lord has anointed me

    to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

    to proclaim freedom for the captives

    and release from darkness for the prisoners,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Isaiah 61;1-2a, NIV)

This passage talks about the work that the spirit does through Jesus. In his party instructions to his disciples, Jesus tells us that we will also receive this same Spirit. As it works through Jesus both to proclaim good news, and also to do restorative works, like binding up the brokenhearted, so it works through his followers to do the same sorts of things. Notice that the works are neither exclusively spiritual nor are they exclusively practical. The spirit empowers the church both for the proclamation of the good news and for works of service, especially among the poor and the marginalized. 

The contemporary North American Church often falls into an either/or mindset When it comes to evangelism or works of Mercy. Conservative evangelicalism often views works of Mercy with suspicion. They are regarded as an inferior task because, it is reasoned, they address people’s short-term needs, while evangelism addresses their eternal needs. On the other hand, mainline Protestant churches have often emphasized the need to engage the poor and the marginalized, but they seem reluctant to proclaim the message that there’s anything unique and authoritative about Jesus. However, to follow Jesus’s example and the empowerment of the spirit, means that we marry social action and the proclamation of God’s coming Kingdom. When we rely exclusively on words, our actions don’t reinforce the message of God’s love. If we say that we follow God who is in his essence love, but our actions are not loving, we undercut our own message. On the other hand, when we love others in practical ways without being explicit that our love is meant as a proclamation of God’s kingdom, then it’s unclear what we’re communicating. Instead, we must serve but also be ready to answer the question of why we serve.

An example of this is the market meal. On one Tuesday a month during the summer, we rent out the canteen at Civic Park during the farmers market. We hand out home-cooked meals. Many people are uncomfortable accepting the meal, because they think that this is merely an act of Charity, and so they would prefer to leave the food for people who don’t have enough. I try to explain to whomever I can, that we’re not offering food as an act of Charity, although we’re happy when people who don’t have enough food take advantage of the program. Rather We are acting out of our conviction that God has blessed us with an abundance and that he commands us to use that abundance as a blessing for others. When people understand that that’s what we’re doing, they always ask a lot of questions. I just like to tell them, “we feel that we’ve been blessed by God, and that we’re called to share that blessing with our community.” There are many ways to marry the proclamation of the good news in word and deed. This is just one example that we’ve taken to doing.

We Have Been Given an Over-abundance of God’s Spirit

Among the Old Testament prophets, none has more honor than Elijah. He commanded the rain to stop falling and Israel experienced a drought for years. He confronted the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel and proved that God, not Baal, was the true God. When it came time for Elijah to depart, his successor was always going to struggle to fill his big shoes. God instructed him to anoint Elisha as his successor.: God was going to take Elijah up to heaven, and Elisha asked for a parting gift from his master::

When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me, what can I do for you before I am taken from you?”

“Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit,” Elisha replied.

“You have asked a difficult thing,” Elijah said, “yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours—otherwise, it will not.”

As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind. Elisha saw this and cried out, “My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!” And Elisha saw him no more. Then he took hold of his garment and tore it in two (2 Kings 2:9-12 NIV).

What does Elisha mean when he asks for a double portion of the spirit that is on Elijah? In Jewish law, the firstborn son of a man, his designated heir, would receive a double portion of the inheritance when the estate was divided after his father’s death. Death. This signified that he was the heir. After Elijah’s departure, there will be many prophets who follow in his footsteps, but Elisha will be understood to be Elijah’s rightful heir if he has a double portion of that Spirit. When Elisha makes this request, Elijah says that it will be granted for him, if Elisha sees him go to heaven. Jewish scholars later noted that Elijah is noted to have performed eight miracles, while Elisha is noted to have reformed 16.

Just like Elisha, The disciples see as their Master is taken up into heaven. The implication of this is that they have received a double portion of the spirit that was at work in the life of Jesus. They are recognized and empowered as his successors and they will do even greater things than Jesus. As Jesus himself said, “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12, NIV).

It may sound almost heretical to say that Jesus’s followers will accomplish more than he has, but I think the point Jesus is trying to make is that he is just one person who is limited by his ability to minister to people at one location at a time. When the spirit empowers the church, it can be a global presence, and minister to people everywhere. This isn’t about upstaging Jesus, but about glorifying him.

So what difference does it make that we are Jesus’s designated successors, empowered by the spirit to work in the world? We go into the world by the power of God and so we can do so. Boldly, without fear. In fact Jesus commands us not to be afraid. Too often, the church is conditioned to fear. There are church leaders, whose personal interests are served by making Christians, fearful and angry. Christians who are afraid will listen to their prognostic aid. Christians who are afraid will stand up against the people they want them to stand up against. Christians who are afraid will vote the way they tell them to vote. But if Jesus has anointed us with the same spirit that empowered him during his earthly Ministry, then afraid is the last thing that we should be. God watches over and protects his children. An example of this is from Luke 4 when Jesus quoted that passage from Isaiah. Isaiah. By claiming that that passage was about him, he’s so offended by the people in the synagogue that they try to throw him off a cliff. But it says that Jesus simply passed through the midst of the crowd. It wasn’t Jesus’s time to suffer, and so God watched over him.

Of course, this is not a guarantee that bad things will not happen to us. After all, Jesus was crucified, and the 12 apostles were mostly martyred for their faith. But God allowed these things to happen to them only when they served his redemptive purposes. We can follow Jesus’s example and boldly proclaim the arrival of God’s kingdom. Doing so may offend some. Let them be offended. Doing so may mean that we are disrespected, mistreated, or persecuted (for the record the disdain of our neighbours or the minor curtailing of our religious freedoms doesn’t rise to the bar of genuine persecution) but God will only allow us to suffer if he has a plan to use that suffering to advance his Kingdom objectives, and we should be willing to suffer so that the Kingdom comes. So let’s proclaim the kingdom boldly as Jesus’ successors, those empowered by the same Spirit that raised him from the dead.

Christ’s Exaltation and Rule

A 3rd Old Testament allusion in this passage is an apocalyptic vision from Daniel 7:

In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed (Daniel 7:13-14, NIV).

Jesus clearly had this vision in mind when he referred to himself as “the Son of Man.” The Son of Man in the story is arriving in heaven to receive authority over the earth from the Ancient of Days. This is fulfilled in Jesus’ ascent into heaven to receive power and authority from God the Father. As the writer of Hebrews says, “After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven” (Heb.1:3b, NIV). Later in Daniel 7, an angel provides some additional interpretation: “Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of all the kingdoms under heaven will be handed over to the holy people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him” (Daniel 7:27, NIV). There is a connection between the Son of Man ascending to heaven and authority being given to his people on the earth. Jesus’ disciples understood that Jesus was vindicated by the resurrection and glorified in his ascension to heaven, and that when Jesus ascended, his people were granted authority. The Church has God’s authority to rule on earth. But the manner of our rule is of critical importance.

If Jesus is the king, then the way we exercise authority in his name must be consistent with how he exercised authority. While the world tells us that authority comes from being able to make people do whatever you want them to do, Jesus models something totally different: he rules over us by humbly and lovingly serving us. The church likewise demonstrates God’s reign in the world through acts of humble and loving service. The world may see this as weakness (The world also saw Jesus’ death on the cross, the ultimate act of loving service, as weak). But as Jesus’ authority was vindicated by his resurrection, so our authority, expressed in service, will also be vindicated when we are raised like Jesus was raised. One day, everyone will recognize that true power and authority come from love, not coercive power. In his letter to the church in Philippi, Paul tells the church to model the same kind of life as Jesus who suffered:

 He [Jesus] humbled himself

    by becoming obedient to death—

        even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

    and gave him the name that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,

    to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:8b-11, NIV)

If Jesus reigns through suffering love, then his people reign on his behalf not by forcing others to obey our moral standards (as many culture warriors presume) but in laying ourselves down for the sake of others.

Conclusion

At his ascension, Jesus was glorified and the church was designated as his successors. This means that we must proclaim his truth in both word and deed. It means that we do this proclamation without fear and that we proclaim Jesus’ kingship not by dominating unbelievers, but by loving and serving them. This is how we can show the world the glory of the crucified and risen king.