This Thursday is Ascension Day–a day sadly not much celebrated in Protestant churches.  On this day, we remember when, as the followers of Jesus watched, Jesus was taken out of their sight, and into heaven (Luke 24:50-51).  The response of the community was significant:

They worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem overwhelmed with joy.  And they were continuously in the temple praising God (Luke 24:52-53).

Too often, we draw a line between worship and service, or evangelism and liturgy, or Bible study and social action.  Clearly, for the earliest church, formed by the experience of Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension, these were unthinkable distinctions.  If they were to be the community of proclamation and service, they needed also to be the community of Scripture, prayer and praise—as do we.

The lectionary readings for Ascension Day (Luke 24:44-53 and Acts 1:1-11) bridge two books in our New Testament, Luke and Acts.  Although separated by the gospel of John in our Bibles, Luke and Acts belong together, as two parts of a single work. The two books have a similar literary style and share common themes, particularly a concern for women and the poor.  But as this week’s readings demonstrate, they are particularly joined by their emphasis upon the risen, victorious, ascended Christ, and his promise of the Holy Spirit (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4-5; 2:1-4).

The structure of Luke moves inexorably toward Jerusalem.  After a prologue describing Jesus’ birth and childhood (Luke 1:1—2:52), the gospel is arranged geographically, starting in Galilee (3:1—9:50), then moving to the way to Jerusalem (9:51—19:44, often called Luke’s “special section” as it contains a wealth of material unique to this gospel), and finally reaching its climax in Jerusalem itself (19:45—24:53).  This pattern is reversed in Acts, where Jerusalem becomes the center out from which the gospel is carried to the entire world; as Jesus tells his followers, “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem throughout Luke’s gospel.  When he at last arrives at Jerusalem, we expect great things–but he is betrayed, captured, tried, condemned and crucified!  That, however, is by no means the end.  Jesus is raised from the dead.  Faithful women see his empty tomb, but the eleven reject their report as nonsense (Luke 24:1-12).

Even when Jesus at last appears to the eleven in Jerusalem (Luke 24:36-43), they have trouble accepting and understanding what has happened. Jesus shows them the wounds of crucifixion, still visible (Luke 24:38-40), and even eats some broiled fish with them to prove that he is really, physically there (Luke 24:41-43).

In the Gospel reading for Ascension Day, Jesus then teaches his followers what his resurrection means:

“These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the Law from Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”  Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures (Luke 24:44-45).  

This description, emphasizing the whole of Scripture, calls to mind the division of the Jewish Bible into Torah (the Law, or the books of Moses), Nebi’im (the Prophets), and Kethubim (the Writings, including the Psalms).  The Jewish canon—that is, the collection of books deemed sacred by the community—was fixed by the end of the first century, but long before that official closure, this threefold division of the canon was in place.

In his prologue to the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach, a book of the Apocrypha dating to the early second century B.C. sometimes called Ecclesiasticus, ben Sirach’s grandson tells us of his grandfather’s work:

Numerous and wonderful things have been given to us through the Law, the Prophets, and the other writings that followed them.  For this reason, it is necessary to praise Israel for education and wisdom.  It is also necessary not only for those who read them to gain understanding  but also for those who love learning to be of service to strangers  when they speak and write.  Because of this, my grandfather, Jesus, who had devoted himself more and more to the reading of the Law,  the Prophets, and the other ancestral scrolls, and had gained enough experience with them, was himself led to compose a work dealing with education and wisdom. His goal was that lovers of learning who were committed to education and wisdom should gain much more by living according to the Law.

Throughout his own two-volume work, Luke uses Scripture in a very distinctive way.  Unlike Matthew, who quotes and cites biblical passages (for example, Matt 2:17-18), Luke alludes to texts, writing in the style of the Greek translation of Jewish Scripture, the Septuagint.  For example, the famous Song of Mary, often called the Magnificat after its opening word in Latin (Luke 1:46-55; the new Presbyterian hymnal has a lovely and vigorous setting of this passage) draws freely in style and imagery on the Song of Hannah (1 Sam 2:1-10).  According to New Testament scholar I. Howard Marshall, Luke’s “use of a [Septuagint] style must raise the question whether he thought of himself as writing a work of the same kind and thus continuing the ‘salvation history’ which he found in it” (I. Howard Marshall, “An Assessment of Recent Developments,” in It Is Written: Scripture Citing Scripture [ed. D. A. Carson and H. G. M. Williamson; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1988], 9).

The degree to which Luke values Scripture is shown, not only in his Septuagintal style, but also in the content of his gospel.  In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, found only in Luke, the rich man’s plea that Lazarus be sent back from the dead to warn his brothers is answered by Abraham, “They have Moses and the Prophets. They must listen to them” (Luke 16:29).  When the rich man says that if someone came back from the dead, his brothers would be sure to listen, Abraham says, “If they don’t listen to Moses and the Prophets, then neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead” (Luke 16:31).

This proves an effective foreshadowing of Luke 24, where Jesus’ resurrection continually prompts doubt and disbelief (with the sterling exception of the women at the tomb!), until he dispels doubt by turning to the Scriptures (Luke 24:27, 44-45).  Of course, reading the Scriptures alone is not enough.  Only when Jesus himself has “interpreted for them the things written about himself in all the scriptures, starting with Moses and going through all the Prophets” (Luke 24:27) and “opened their minds to understand the scriptures” (Luke 24:45) does their meaning become powerful and apparent.  As the two friends in Emmaus say after their encounter with Jesus, “Weren’t our hearts on fire when he spoke to us along the road and when he explained the scriptures for us?” (Luke 24:32).

It is difficult to know precisely what Luke has in mind when he writes,

This is what is written: the Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day,  and a change of heart and life for the forgiveness of sins must be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. (Luke 24:46-47)

It seems unlikely that he is thinking of a specific text for each claim Jesus makes here about himself.  Rather it seems that the whole of Scripture extends into, and finds its fulfillment in, the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus.  This is the point of Luke’s gospel, and the reason he writes as he does, in the style of the Septuagint, echoing its language and themes.  Luke believes that he is writing Scripture, and that Scripture bears witness to God in Christ Jesus. 

When I was teaching at Randolph-Macon College in Virginia, I met a Korean-born Christian named Peter Chang.  Peter, like me, had done his Ph. D. in Hebrew Bible at Union/PSCE in Richmond, and for a time he worked as an adjunct in our college Religious Studies department.  We talked often, about common friends at Union, about our discipline of biblical studies, about teaching, but also about faith.

Peter told me how he had become a Christian in South Korea.  He was a university student, he said.  At this time, he knew no Christians: his family was not Christian; he had no Christian friends.  Together with a group of other students, none of whom was Christian, Peter began a study of the gospel of Mark.  In the course of that study, they became convinced of the truth of what they were reading.  Unguided by missionaries or tracts, unproselytized by Protestants or Catholics, without an evangelist or an altar rail in sight, they gave their lives to the Jesus they met in the pages of Scripture.

I found Peter’s story amazing, but not surprising.  In my years of teaching Bible to undergraduates, many of whom had never opened a Bible before, I had many times seen similar evidence of the power of Scripture to change lives.  Many times, students have written a note on the last page of their final exams, telling me that they have started going to church, or that they have started listening to their pastor’s sermons.  One student wrote, “I think I know now what I need to do to be saved.”  Scripture has this power, not because the Bible is a magic book, but because in its pages, God comes to meet us.  Through the words of Scripture, we encounter the Word made flesh, our living Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That is why the Bible matters.

AFTERWORD:

The Bible Guy is thankful for Pope Francis’ powerful call for Israeli and Palestinian leaders to meet with him and pray for peace.  Let us join this faithful Christian leader in prayer for the peace of Jerusalem, and for justice for Palestinians.

We have long had the notion that the last words someone speaks before death–especially, someone famous–are of particular and lasting significance.  We hold this to be true, despite counter-examples, such as the last words of Socrates.  According to his student Plato, Socrates’ last words were,”Crito, we owe a cock to Asclepius. Please, don’t forget to pay the debt.”

Certainly, last words can be moving and inspiring–like those of John Wesley:  “The best of all is, God is with us.”

Last words can also be mysterious and evocative, like those of Confederate General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson: “Let us cross over the river, and rest in the shade of the trees.”

My own favorite last words were spoken by Union General John Sedgwick, at the battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse: “I’m ashamed of you men, dodging that way.  They couldn’t hit an elephant at this range!”

Sunday’s lesson from Acts also dealt with famous last words: those spoken by Stephen, the first Christian martyr.  Stephen was one of the first seven people to be named deacons: specially appointed to serve under the leadership of the apostles (Acts 6:1-7).

Stephen was a very effective preacher and teacher; he angered the religious leadership, however, and so was tried on trumped-up charges of blasphemy and condemned to death.

Among the last words he spoke, as the stones were raining down on him, were, Kyrie ‘Iesou, dexai to pneuma mou: “Lord Jesus, accept my life!” (CEB), or more literally, “Receive my spirit” (NRSV).  Praying in this way, Stephen follows the example of his Lord Jesus, who he asks to receive his spirit.  In Luke, Jesus’ last words are, Pater, eis cheiras sou paratithemai to pneuma mou: “Father, into your hands I entrust my life” (CEB), or more familiarly, “I commend my spirit” (NRSV).

Both Jesus’ and Stephen’s last words refer to Psalm 31:5 (in the Hebrew and Greek Bibles, Ps 31:6): “Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.”  The Greek of that first phrase is eis cheiras sou parathesomai [a different form of the same verb Luke uses in Lk 23:46] to pneuma mou.

These words may remind you of the prayer we pray beside the grave of a loved one–a prayer our family prayed in a snowy cemetery in Michigan this past February, as we committed Mom’s ashes to the ground, and entrusted her life into the hands of God:

Almighty God, into your hands we commend your daughter Gerry, in sure and certain hope of resurrection to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

This is what we believers do for those we love: with words of confident assurance, we entrust them into God’s loving hands.

But in Psalm 31, these words are not spoken at the end of life.  The Psalmist expresses trust in God in the midst of life, out of turmoil, conflict, and struggle:

My life is consumed with sadness;
    my years are consumed with groaning.
Strength fails me because of my suffering;
    my bones dry up.
I’m a joke to all my enemies,
    still worse to my neighbors.
    I scare my friends,
    and whoever sees me in the street runs away!
I am forgotten, like I’m dead,
    completely out of mind;
    I am like a piece of pottery, destroyed.
Yes, I’ve heard all the gossiping,
    terror all around;
    so many gang up together against me,
        they plan to take my life!

In one sense, it really doesn’t mean anything.  After all, God is Lord of the universe, whether we recognize it or not; our lives are already in God’s hands, whether we acknowledge it or not.  To commit ourselves and those we love to God is only to recognize the way that things actually are.

To pray this prayer, however, says a good deal about who we believe God to be!  The psalmist prays,

Listen closely to me!
    Deliver me quickly;
        be a rock that protects me;
        be a strong fortress that saves me!
You are definitely my rock and my fortress.
    Guide me and lead me for the sake of your good name! (Ps 31:2-3).

Entrusting ourselves into God’s hands, we avow that God is our rock, our fortress.  We confess that God is for us, not against us–and that confession changes everything!

First, commending our lives into the hands of a loving God changes the way that we see our own lives and circumstances.  We can face struggle, hardship, and trouble with confidence, knowing that we are not alone.  We need not be anxious about the future, because we know that, whatever comes, that future is securely in God’s hands.

Commending ourselves and those we love into God’s hands also changes way that we see one another.  We don’t need to be fearful and anxious about those whom we love.  We can let them go–trusting them into the hands of God.

We can also let go of those whom we do not particularly love, and who do not love us–those with whom we are angry, perhaps for very good reasons.  The psalmist, who has experienced oppression and violence from his enemies, is very angry, and calls for vengeance on his enemies:

Lord, don’t let me be put to shame
    because I have cried out to you.
Let the wicked be put to shame;
    let them be silenced in death’s domain!
Let their lying lips be shut up
    whenever they speak arrogantly
    against the righteous with pride and contempt!  (Ps 31:17-18)

But not Stephen!  The very last words that Stephen speaks are, “Lord, don’t hold this sin against them!” (Acts 7:60).  In this, he once more follows the example of his Lord.

Luke records that Jesus prayed for his torturers and executioners, who had nailed him to the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.” How did Jesus and Stephen let go of resentment and anger, and forgive their enemies?  Perhaps they could do so because they trusted even their foes into God’s hands, believing that God was at work in them, bringing transformation.

Certainly, that was the case among Stephen’s persecutors.  Luke tells us, almost in passing, that before they began to stone Stephen, “The witnesses placed their coats in the care of a young man named Saul” (Acts 7:58).  Later in the story Acts unfolds, this young man becomes first, an avid persecutor of the church (Acts 8:1-3), and then, its most ardent defender–better known as Paul (Acts 9:1-21).

We need to be careful here.  Commending our lives into God’s hands is no guarantee that all will turn out well: it certainly didn’t for Stephen, who was stoned to death, or for Jesus, who was crucified!  Faced with tragedy, or failure, or frustration, we may be brought to the point of giving up.  What difference does faith make, anyway?

In his book The Irony of American History (1952, p. 63), the great twentieth century public theologian Reinhold Niebuhr reflected upon this mystery.  He wrote:

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however, virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.

Commending ourselves into God’s hands, we can face whatever comes, even the worst, with courage, knowing that God is at work in us, through us, and in spite of us!  As Paul–who, recall, had been one of Stephen’s executioners–acclaimed, “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38-39).  Trusting that God is at work in our lives and in our world, may we–with Jesus, Stephen, and believers in all times and places–say this day and every day, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

Recently, on my Facebook page, I used the term “Anti-Christian” to describe a statement made by a controversial political figure (more on that below).  I did not do this to be myself controversial, or to claim that this person is the Antichrist.  I did use the term deliberately, in reference not to its popular, but to its biblical meaning.

Popularly, the term Antichrist is thought to refer to a future world ruler, predicted in the book of Revelation, who will force everyone to wear his “mark of the Beast.”  Some go so far as to identify the mark with, say UPC codes, or to identify a current world leader  or the United Nations with the Antichrist.

The term “antichrist” (Greek antichristos), however, does not appear in the book of Revelation at all.  It is found only four times in Scripture, in 1 John 2:18, 22 and 4:3, and 2 John 7.  The word may have been coined by the author of these short works, who identifies himself simply as the Elder.

In 1 and 2 John, the term refers not to one person, but to many: indeed, the Elder warns of  a spirit of antichrist.  According to the Elder, this spirit tragically comes out of the community of faith:

They went out from us, but they were not really part of us. If they had been part of us, they would have stayed with us. But by going out from us, they showed they all are not part of us (1 John 2:19).

But the Elder expresses confidence in the community: they know the truth and so will not be mislead by lies (1 Jn 2:20-21).  In fact, the distinguishing mark of antichristos IS the Lie: the denial of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God.

The Elder addresses antichristos particularly in his teaching regarding spiritual discernment (1 Jn 4:1-6):

Dear friends, don’t believe every spirit. Test the spirits to see if they are from God because many false prophets have gone into the world. This is how you know if a spirit comes from God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come as a human is from God, and every spirit that doesn’t confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and is now already in the world. You are from God, little children, and you have defeated these people because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world. So they speak from the world’s point of view and the world listens to them. We are from God. The person who knows God listens to us. Whoever is not from God doesn’t listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

The term “false prophets” (pseudoprophetai) is sometimes used in the Septuagint where the Hebrew simply has “prophet.”  For example, in Zechariah 13:2:

On that day, says the Lord of heavenly forces,
        I will eliminate the names of the idols from the land;
            they will no longer be remembered.
Moreover, I will remove the prophets [Greek pseudoprophetas, or “false prophets”] and the sinful spirit from the land.

This word, which may have been invented by the Septuagint’s translators, is used by later Jewish writers such as the historian Josephus and the philosopher Philo.

In the New Testament, however, the rise of false prophets can be used as a sign of the last days (so Matt 24:11, 24:24//Mark 13:22; and Rev 16:13; 19:20; 20:10).  That is the position of the Elder in 1 John.  But for this Christian teacher, discerning true prophecy from false is straightforward: as in 1 John 2:22, the denial of Jesus is the evidence of antichrist.  In 1 John 4, however, antichristos specifically denies the Incarnation:

This is how you know if a spirit comes from God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come as a human is from God,and every spirit that doesn’t confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and is now already in the world (1 Jn 4:2-3; see also Jn 1:14)

Conversely, the confession of Christ is the means to victory over sin and evil, “because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 Jn 4:4).  This leads to a test in practice: the true spirit of Christ rather than antichristos is shown in Christlike love for one another and for God (1 Jn 4:7—5:5).  1 John 4:7-8 is the Golden Text of the entire Bible:

Dear friends, let’s love each other, because love is from God, and everyone who loves is born from God and knows God. The person who doesn’t love does not know God, because God is love.

What an extraordinary confession: the greatest power in the universe is self-giving, sacrificial love!  This affirmation parallels the most famous text in Scripture, John 3:16-17:

 God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him won’t perish but will have eternal life. God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

Jesus is the demonstration and proof of God’s love (see also Rom 5:8).

In 2 John, drawing directly from 1 John, the Elder follows Jesus’ example in proclaiming the new commandment of love (2 Jn 5-6; 1 Jn 2:7-8).  It is in connection with the love commandment that the Elder warns about antichristos, which denies “that Jesus Christ came as a human being” (2 Jn 7).  Rejecting Christ means more than rejecting a religious doctrine.  It means rejecting Christlikeness: the way of love followed, enabled and empowered by Jesus.

So, where is antichristos manifest in our world?  Not, to be sure, in peace signs, or UPC codes, or the United Nations, or Harry Potter!  Wherever professing Christians speak violence and hatred, yet claim to speak in God’s name, there is the spirit of antichrist.

When Governor Sarah Palin said, in a speech to the National Rifle Association, “Well, if I were in charge, they would know that waterboarding is how we’d baptize terrorists”–that is the spirit of antichristos.

When Ugandan bishop Charles Wamika, in his Easter message at St. Charles Lwanga Catholic Church “called for a blessing for Uganda’s Christians who worked so hard to ‘free the land of gays’”  and “asked for parents to hand over their gay children to authorities, so they would be rewarded in heaven,” that is the spirit of antichrist.

We cannot let such abominable speech stand.  When it occurs, wherever it occurs, we need to name it for what it is, and reject any implication that these words are in any way compatible with the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.  God grant us the courage to condemn the antichristian language of hatred and violence, and to pursue the language and practice of love.