“Where is Jesus and what is he up to?” a sermon for the 5th SUNDAY OF EASTER (18 May 2025)

     Where’s Jesus?  In 1893, Oscar Wilde wrote a one-act play called Salome.  Here is an excerpt, where the dialogue takes place in the court of Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee.  The biblical background for this scene is Lk. 9.1-9:

“Then Jesus called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal… They departed and went through the villages, bringing the good news…  Now Herod the ruler heard about all that had taken place, and he was perplexed, because it was said by some that John had been raised from the dead, by some that Elijah had appeared, and by others that one of the ancient prophets had arisen. Herod said, “John I beheaded; but who is this about whom I hear such things?” And he tried to see him.” 

Salome (1893)

HEROD
Concerning whom then did he speak?

FIRST NAZARENE
Concerning Messiah, who has come.  He has come, and everywhere He works miracles!

HERODIAS
Ho! ho! miracles! I do not believe in miracles. I have seen too many.

FIRST NAZARENE
This Man works true miracles. Thus, at a marriage which took place in a little town of Galilee, a town of some importance, He changed water into wine. Certain persons who were present related it to me. Also, He healed two lepers that were seated before the Gate of Capernaum simply by touching them.

SECOND NAZARENE
Nay; it was two blind men that He healed at Capernaum.  There is also the miracle of the daughter of Jairus.

FIRST NAZARENE
Yea, that is sure. No man can gainsay it.

HERODIAS
Those men are mad. They have looked too long on the moon. Command them to be silent.

HEROD
What is this miracle of the daughter of Jairus?

FIRST NAZARENE
The daughter of Jairus was dead. This Man raised her from the dead.

HEROD
How! He raises people from the dead?

FIRST NAZARENE
Yes, sire; He raises the dead.

HEROD
I do not wish Him to do that. I forbid Him to do that. I suffer no man to raise the dead. This Man must be found and told that I forbid Him to raise the dead. Where is this Man at present?

SECOND NAZARENE
He is in every place, my lord, but it is hard to find Him.

     Déjà-vu – a miracle.  In Acts chapters 3—4, we see a familiar tri-partite pattern play itself out.  This pattern is repeated several times in the opening chapters of the book of Acts.  First, a miraculous sign is performed; secondly, the apostles have the opportunity to preach a “sermon” to the crowd attracted by the miracle; thirdly, there are consequences for the apostles and the Jerusalem church – both good and bad – that follow upon all this.  So, in Acts chapter 3, Peter and John go to the temple at “the ninth hour”, i.e. the hour of prayer (cf. Lk. 1.9-11; Ac. 10.3).  The story that follows about the healing of the man born lame resembles stories from the Gospel of John about Jesus’ healing of the paralytic at the pool of Siloam and the healing of the man born blind (cf. Jn. chapters 5 & 9).  As we saw earlier in the passage I read from Luke’s Gospel, this is not the first time that Peter and John have had the opportunity to heal someone (cf. Lk. 9.1-6).  The mission of proclaiming the kingdom of God and of healing the sick/demonized, begun by Jesus and in which Peter and John have already participated, now continues in the early days of the Jerusalem Jesus-community (cf. Lk. 4.43; 8.1; 9.11; Ac. 1.3; 2.22; 10.38, etc.).  It’s interesting to note that Jesus performed no healings during Holy Week, during the days that he spent in Jerusalem before his death.  However, in the opening chapters of the book of Acts, the apostles perform signs in the Jewish capital (cf. Ac. 2.43).  One might say that they’re making up for Jesus’ lack of healing miracles around the Temple.  Or again, one might say that the Spirit-filled apostles are the extension of the healing ministry of Jesus… the “body of Christ”, as it were.

     Sermon, take 2.  Next, Peter has the opportunity to preach his second sermon (cf. Ac. 2).  He insists that the man, who had just learned how to walk, was enabled to do so by the invocation of the name of Jesus (Ac. 3.6; cf. Ac. 2.21; cf. Gn. 4.26; 12.8, etc.).  Biblically speaking, invoking the name of someone is a way of invoking their presence and their power (cf. Ps. 124.8; Prov. 18.10).  By invoking the name of Jesus, his power to heal was made present, just as he had healed (“in the flesh”) the Siloam paralytic and the man born blind.  In the book of Acts, we meet many people who tried to imitate the apostle’s (i.e. Jesus’) power, with disastrous consequences for the charlatans (cf. Ac. 8.9-24; 19.13-17).

     The comeback.  As the book of Acts begins, the Galilean “Jesus-movement” takes Jerusalem by storm! (cf. Ac. 2.7).  In these opening chapters, we see the same pattern of “ministry” that had previously occurred in Galilee that we find in Luke’s Gospel.  Compare this part of the book of Acts with Jesus’ “holy week” in Jerusalem (Lk. 20—23), which had been characterized by daily preaching in Temple, constant questioning by religious leaders, hostility from Temple leadership, the crowds serving as Jesus’ “bodyguard” and finally, Jesus’ arrest and trial.  In Luke’s Gospel, most of the action takes place in Galilee and involves the renewing of Israel through the 12 apostles.  In Luke’s sequel, the book of Acts, the action begins where it had ended in his Gospel – in Jerusalem.  In volume 2 of Luke’s work, the renewed Israel grows, and prepares to renew the world.

     Both Luke’s Gospel and the book of Acts depict a series of “ironic trials” which take place in Jerusalem.  While Jesus is constantly “interrogated” during “holy week” and is eventually formally tried before three different “courts” – the Sanhedrin, Herod Antipas and Pilate – everyone who questions Jesus finds themselves to be the ones actually on trial (cf. Lk. 20—23).  Jesus’ presence in Jerusalem is the city’s “visitation” by God, and the people of God do not realize what’s happening and thus doom themselves to destruction due to their culpable negligence and spiritual blindness (Lk. 19.41-44).  In the book of Acts, though the apostles are constantly being arrested and questioned by the Sanhedrin, they are actually the ones who are “convicting” the crowds of pilgrims in Jerusalem as well as the city’s religious leadership of their guilt and complicity in Jesus’ death (cf. Ac. 2.23, 36-37; 3.15; 4.10; 5.30).  Every healing performed by the apostles is proof, not only of Jesus’ resurrection, but also of the fact that he was a “righteous” victim of the Sanhedrin’s injustice (cf. Lk. 23.47; Ac. 2.22, 37; 5.30-33).  Courtrooms and courtroom imagery are prevalent: the apostles are “witnesses” to Jesus’ resurrection (Ac. 3.15, 26) and they offer “testimony” before the Sanhedrin.

     As Peter preaches to the crowd in Solomon’s Portico – as the man who is walking-for-the-first-time is hanging onto his arm (Ac. 3.11) – he levels a triple accusation against the crowd of pilgrims:

·        You handed Jesus over and rejected him in the presence of Pilate (Ac. 3.13; cf. Lk. 23.13-25);

·        You rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you;

·        You killed the Author of Life, whom God raised from the dead (Ac. 3.14-15).

Peter indicts the crowd for Jesus’ judicial murder, and then acknowledges that this crime had been committed out of ignorance (Ac. 3.17-18; cf. Lk. 23.34).  Peter then invites those listening to him to repent so their sins may be forgiven (3.19).

     The vindication of Jesus: Jesus is vindicated vis-à-vis (the leaders of) the people of God who had condemned him by a series of events:

·        His resurrection.

·        His ascension/exaltation to the right hand of the Father (cf. Dn. 7.13-14).

·        The proclamation by the apostles of his resurrection and his messiahship/lordship (cf. Ac. 2.36) and the demonstration of the power of the name of Jesus to heal the sick.

·        The destruction of Jerusalem “within one generation” as he had predicted (cf. Lk. 19.41-44; 21.5-28).  This occurred in the year AD 70 (forty years after Jesus’ crucifixion).

As the book of Acts opens, it’s “I told you so!” time.

     Concerning heaven.  So, where’s Jesus?  Peter tells the crowd that “Jesus must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration that God announced through his holy prophets” (Ac. 3.21).  So, where’s heaven?  As far as the Bible is concerned, heaven is not far away.  “God’s dimension”, if you will, is just behind a curtain that is sometimes drawn back so we can glimpse what’s going on “behind the scenes”.

     Whether it’s

·        Abraham welcoming three strangers to lunch and later realizing that one of them is “God” (and the two others are angels: Gn. 18-19),

·        or Jacob dreaming of a ladder reaching up to God’s abode and then awaking to the fact that he had spent the night on the threshold of heaven (cf. Gn. 28.10-17);

·        or Moses discovering that a shrub in the desert is actually a heavenly portal (cf. Ex. 3.1-6);

·        or the prophet Elisha seeing the chariots of the armies of heaven surrounding the armies of Aram who were besieging Jerusalem (cf. 2 Kings 6.14-17);

·        or Isaiah having a vision of God’s throne while praying in the Temple (cf. Is. 6.1-10);

·        or Ezekiel being awestruck by the sight of God’s throne-chariot while sitting by the rivers of Babylon (cf. Ez. 1.1-28; cp. Dn. 7.9-10),

heaven is portrayed in the Scriptures as being right there – behind the veil of everyday reality.  Indeed, the phrase, “the heavens were opened” is a recurrent one in Scripture (cf. Ez. 1.1; Mt. 3.16; Mk. 1.10; Ac. 7.56; cp. Rev. 4.1).  In biblical cosmology, “heaven” is the “control room” for “earth”.  The deliberations of the “heavenly council” influence the unfolding of events on earth (cf. Jer. 23.16-32; 1 Kings 22.13-28; Job 1, etc.).

     So, Jesus is “in heaven”, enthroned at the right hand of God (cf. Ac. 2.33); and precisely because he is in heaven, and has received the kingdom promised to the Son of Man in Daniel 7, his kingdom – through the obedience of his followers – is now taking over the “earth”.  “May your kingdom come…on earth as in heaven”.  Through his resurrection & ascension, the outpouring of his Spirit, and his world-wide family of followers, Jesus is truly in every place; and yet, it often remains the case that he is hard to find.  Amen.