Between the Going and the Coming

Zephyr United Methodist Church

Early First United Methodist Church

October 23, 2005

Rev. Eddie Smart

Acts 1:6-14

So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?" ⁷He replied, "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. ⁸But 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." ⁹When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. ¹⁰While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. ¹¹They said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up 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."

¹²Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day's journey away. ¹³When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying, Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. ¹⁴All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.

    How many here have witnessed something extraordinary! Someone was telling me the other day about a sunrise. By the time they were finished describing it, I was disappointed that I missed it. It must have be gorgeous! There were clouds totally surrounding the sun, and the viewer could see light rays shining through the clouds radiating in all directions–up, down, right, left, and in between.

    Let me ask you a question. To have experienced such a beautiful sight and tell me about it, was it necessary for that person to be an astronomer or astro-physicist? Did that person need to be educated as a meteorologist, understanding clouds, sunlight, and the atmosphere to be a witness to their experience?

    I remember it like it was yesterday. To be more accurate, I remember it better than many of the things that happened yesterday. It was the latter half of 1971. I was working on a project for the U. S. Navy, studying motion cues in aircraft flight simulators. We were making modifications to a Navy flight simulator in Orlando, Florida. I spent one-half of my time in Orlando working at night.

    During one of our trips, NASA was launching an Apollo space capsule. I went to Cape Kennedy to witness that launch. People were gathered on the mainland, on the beach across from the launch pad. We were several miles away, but we could clearly see the Saturn rocket waiting to blast off. People had their radios blaring, and all gathered on that beach could hear the countdown. Some time before time zero, fire started belching from beneath the rocket–gigantic flames. Within no time at all, I could feel the ground beneath my feet shuttering. You could feel it stronger than the several earthquakes I have experienced. My whole body was vibrating. We followed the rocket as it lifted off the pad and went up and up. Higher and higher it went. And then, all of a sudden the noise was deafening. It caught me by surprise. You see it took the sound much longer to travel from the launch pad than it did for the light to travel through the air or the vibrations to travel through the ground. It was one of those once in a lifetime experiences.

    Now did I need a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering to experience that launch? Did I need to be an astronaut to appreciate the beauty of that moment and to bear witness to what happened?

    Jesus was about to leave his disciples behind as he ascended to our Heavenly Father. The disciples asked a logical question, “When are you coming back?” Jesus said, “Don’t be worried about that, I have more important things for you.”

    I can just hear the disciples saying, “But what are we going to do between your going and your coming?”

    Jesus was quick to answer. He said, “But you will receive the power of the Holy Spirit and shall be my witnesses.”

    Jesus makes it clear that to be a disciple you must be His witness. What does it mean to witness–to be a witness? To be a witness is to experience something – to see or hear something. BUT to be a witness also means to share with others what you have experienced -- what you have seen or heard. To witness is to experience & share. You don’t have to know all there is to know about an experience to share what you have experienced.

    Why is the witness so important? Dr. James Stewart, professor of New Testament at the University of Edinburgh, described what he thought is the greatest threat to the church. He said, "It is not communism, atheism, or materialism; the greatest threat is Christians trying to sneak into heaven incognito without ever sharing their faith."

    The well known theologian, William Barclay, described the importance of the Christian witness in this way. “Christianity is something which is meant to be seen. As someone has well said, ‘There can be no such thing as secret discipleship, for either the secrecy destroys the discipleship, or the discipleship destroys the secrecy.’ A [person's] Christianity should be perfectly visible to all.”

    Why is the witness so important? It's important because Jesus made it clear that to be his witness is the duty of disciples. In this passage Jesus tells his disciples that they will be his witness. In Matthew's gospel, Jesus tells his disciples, “ Go - make disciples, teach them all I have commanded you.” In other words, you have experienced - now share .

    By the way, some folks get confused. Jesus didn’t call us to be saviors, that job has already been filled. We are called to be faithful witnesses by the power of the Holy Spirit.

    "You shall be my witnesses." Martha went to the tomb, found no body, only a stone rolled away. She went back to share what she had experienced with the others. Cleopas & his friend met Jesus on the road to Emmaus. Their eyes were opened & they recognized him in the breaking of the bread. They experienced the risen Christ. That very night they returned to Jerusalem to share the news with the others.

    Jesus came to 10 of the disciples in a locked room. They experienced the risen Christ. They shared their experience with Thomas.

    Luke writes about experiences with Jesus in his gospel. Luke witnesses to Theophilus & to us about the power of the Holy Spirit in his second book we now call the Acts of the Apostles.

    John Newton, the converted ship’s Captain and slave trader, witnessed to God’s amazing grace at work in his life. Haratio Spafford bore witness to the peace God brought in the lost of his wife and daughter. Joseph Scriven shared what a friend we have in Jesus. While I am not a composer–a musician, these men were, and they wrote out of their experiences. They used their God given ability to be witnesses to God’s grace. God has given each of us the ability to witness–for most of us in ways other than writing lyrics.

    Woman at Ashton UMC last Sunday...

    All of these witnessed by word to their experience of Jesus Christ. They were fishermen, housekeepers, tax collectors, and even a doctor. They were a businessman, a wealthy, educated man and a ship’s Captain. They came from every walk of life. They experienced God’s grace through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, and they simply shared with others their experience.

    You are a witness whether you want to be or not! There were those cyclist I met very spring on Sunday mornings between the churches I served in Cleburne and Cresson. Their witness was riding a bicycle is more important than God. Cycling is more important than Jesus Christ.

    Our actions witness loudly! Drue Duke, following his mother's death,

found tucked in her Bible part of a handwritten note addressed to her. It was from a woman he didn't know and it read in part:

"I love you for a number of reasons, the most important of which is what you did for my husband. When he was in the hospital, you visited him, though you'd never met him, and you encouraged several men in the church to visit him. As a result of those visits, my husband said, 'When I get better, I'm going to that church and find out what it has that makes those people so kind and lovable.' What he found, my dear friend, was Christ and Christian fellowship, neither of which he had known before."

    Our witness reaches farther in time and space than we can imagine. "You shall be my witnesses."

    Have you ever heard of a Sunday school teacher named Kimball? Is it possible that Mr. Kimball has been an influence on your life?

    A Sunday School teacher, a Mr. Kimball, in 1858, shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with a Boston shoe clerk. The clerk, Dwight L. Moody, became an evangelist. In England in 1879, he awakened evangelistic zeal in the heart of Fredrick B. Meyer, the pastor of a small church.

    F. B. Meyer, preaching to an American college campus, brought to Christ a student named J. Wilbur Chapman. Chapman, engaged in YMCA work, employed a former baseball player, Billy Sunday, to do evangelistic work.

    Billy Sunday held a revival in Charlotte, N.C. A group of local men were so enthusiastic afterward that they planned another evangelistic campaign, bringing Mordecai Hamm to town to preach.

    During Hamm's revival, a young man heard the gospel and yielded his life to Christ. That young man was named Billy Graham. Only eternity will reveal the tremendous impact of that one Sunday School teacher, Mr. Kimball, who invested his life in the lives of others. Has your life been influenced by Mr. Kimball?

    "You shall be my witnesses." Only eternity will reveal the impact our witness has had on the lives of others.