This week, many churches will celebrate Ascension Sunday, commemorating Jesus’s ascent into heaven forty days after his resurrection. Narratively, this is the moment when the disciples must first come to terms with what it means to be followers of Jesus when Jesus is no longer with them. Until now, they have followed him, going where he pointed. Now they must carry on his work without him.

Hopes for a Christian Nation

As Jesus prepares to depart, the disciples ask him a final question, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6). The question shows that the disciples have not yet understood Jesus’s mission. They imagine a Jesus on the side of nationalist renewal, a messiah who will return in power to Make Israel Great Again. They long for the restoration of the great kingdom of a glorious past, when all was well with Israel.

In fact, such a kingdom never existed—at least not in the way they imagine it. The kingdom of David had been one of constant militarism, warring first against the Philistines and then against the Ammonites. David himself had been a flawed king, covering up his affair with a married woman by having her husband murdered (2 Samuel 11). Under the reign of his son Solomon, Israel had extended its wealth and power, but only due to his oppressive rule over the people (1 Kings 12:4).

In their longing for the restoration of a glorified past, the disciples demonstrate that they have not yet understood the mission of Jesus. Jesus had no pretensions to political power. He had no part in nation building, particularly a militaristic nationalism that triumphs by wielding death. Indeed, he had been executed by militaristic nationalism, crucified by the Romans as a traitor. He had no intention of wielding power like the Romans.

The Power of the Holy Spirit

Rather, Jesus speaks of power of a different kind. He says to the disciples,

It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. (1:7-8)

Here Luke (the author of Acts), expresses “power” with the Greek word dunamis. Everywhere that Luke uses dunamis throughout the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts, it refers not to political power but to spiritual power. It is the power to cast out demons, the power to heal the sick, the power of resurrection life that has overcome once and for all the deathliness of the Empire.

This is the power that the disciples will receive—not political but spiritual. Not death-wielding but life-giving. It is the power of the Holy Spirit working through them to spread the good news of abundant life to all the earth.

As you read on in the book of Acts, you see how this power manifests itself, not in political authority and public acclamation, but in acts of healing and mercy. Indeed, this spiritual power most often runs the disciples afoul of the political powers. Paul is thrown in prison. Stephen is stoned to death.

The power that will come upon the disciples is not the power of a restored nation state. It is the power of a love that knows no boundaries of nationality, or politics, or religion, or gender, or ethnicity. It is the power of God unto life. The power that will not be intimidated by threats of death.

Jesus had no intention of restoring the kingdom of Israel. He had no desire to found a Christian nation—whether in ancient Israel or in modern America. Anyone who tells you otherwise misunderstands the good news of the Gospel, which transcends the bounds of nationalism and embraces all people as beloved children of God.

Gazing to the Heavens

But the disciples don’t know all of this yet. They won’t know it until the Holy Spirit rushes upon them at Pentecost, compelling them out into the streets to proclaim the reconciling power of God to the whole world (Acts 2).

For now, with his words still lingering in the air, Jesus suddenly ascends into the heavens on a cloud. The disciples are dumbfounded, staring after him as he disappears in the distance.

We might recognize their heavenward gaze, a longing perhaps for a life in heaven far removed from the troubles of this world. It is a stare common to many modern Christians, who imagine this world as merely a placed to be passed through on the way to some great glory in the sky. They long to follow after Jesus, to leave this world behind.

But two angels appear and rebuke the disciples for their lingering gaze into the heavens. They say,

Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. (Acts 1:11)

Stop looking up, they say. There is work to be done here. There is suffering to be healed here. There is sorrow to be comforted here. There is hunger to be satiated here. There is the good news of life abundant to be proclaimed here.

For these angels, heaven should be of no concern—to the disciples or to us. Jesus will come when Jesus comes. We don’t know the hours or the times, and no amount of heaven-gazing will change a thing. Rather, there is a world right here, shrouded in the shadow of death, needing desperately to hear the good news of resurrection life.