HERE:
1 In my first book I told you, Theophilus, about everything Jesus began to do and teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven after giving his chosen apostles further instructions through the Holy Spirit. 3 During the forty days after he suffered and died, he appeared to the apostles from time to time, and he proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive. And he talked to them about the Kingdom of God. 4 Once when he was eating with them, he commanded them, “Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised, as I told you before. 5 John baptized with water, but in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
THERE:
6 So when the apostles were with Jesus, they kept asking him, “Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom?” 7 He replied, “The Father alone has the authority to set those dates and times, and they are not for you to know. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” 9 After saying this, he was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see him. 10 As they strained to see him rising into heaven, two white-robed men suddenly stood among them. 11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why are you standing here staring into heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but someday he will return from heaven in the same way you saw him go!” NLT
BEYOND:
My first question might be yours too. Why is Luke’s second book not right there after his Gospel? About the second century when the church was arranging these writings into a collection we call the “canon,” the writings of Luke were separated into two parts but they didn’t become Luke 1 and Luke 2. Luke, in his first book tells the details and events of God revealing Himself in recognizable human form of “new life.” Jesus came into the world to be a visible example of life that was not trapped by separation from God but built on a relationship with Him. The major events of Jesus’s life happened in and around Jerusalem in that “first” book. Those details were foundational to what Luke wrote in that “second” book. It was that second half of his writing to the same man, that tells the story of how the God of Israel revealed his “Acts” beyond Jerusalem and beyond the Jews to reveal Christ in a new way that would offer new life to us beyond the limits of humanity. New life within people through the Holy Spirit effectively recreating a “new body” for Himself — His Church.
My second question is about the “two white robed men” who “suddenly stood among them.” I don’t know who they were but I feel certain their message was to challenge the focus of those “men of Galilee” who were straining to see beyond their understanding into heaven and the future. Jesus was writing the second part of His book. He had promised there was going to be something new…the Holy Spirit. Here’s an interesting thing for us to ponder about that challenge. Was their message meant to focus the apostles on the promise that Jesus would be with them again when He returned in the future? Or was it to remind them the second half of the story was not going to be about Jesus in Heaven but about Jesus in them…“telling people about [Jesus] everywhere?
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