Acts 1:1-8

Saint Luke is the only one of the Evangelists, which is a word we use for the authors of the Gospels, who wrote a sequel. Matthew, Mark, and John (it almost sounds odd to say it without Luke in there) don’t tell us what happened after the ministry of Jesus. Only Luke does. We can piece together some events in the life of the early church by looking at the epistles and the situations that Paul and others were addressing, but for the most part, it is the book of Acts which is our only witness to the life of the church immediately after the ascension of Jesus Christ. This book is our only window into those earliest years of the church, which has now existed for nearly 2,000 years. 

And one of the things that Luke does in his introduction to this book, and it is subtle, but it is incredibly significant, is frame the story of the early church as a continuation of the story of Jesus. Now, I don’t mean that Luke says, “This is what happened before, and now this is the sequel.” It’s not simply that time has passed and now Luke is telling a new story that in some sense continues the themes of his last book. Luke actually says more than this. He says, “In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach.” Note, he doesn’t say, “In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus did and taught.” No, he says, “I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach.”

If we stop and ask ourselves why Luke frames the story this way, the answer is obvious, and most you probably already know this. Luke tells the story of the early church this way because Luke believes that Jesus continues to do and to teach through his Apostles and through his church. The Gospel of Luke is the story of what Jesus began to do and to teach and the Acts of the Apostle is the story of what Jesus continued to do and teach through his Apostles. 

And for St. Luke, this isn’t simply a metaphor or an interesting way to frame the two stories. For St. Luke this belief is grounded in his pneumatology, which is a fancy way of saying that for St. Luke this belief about the early church is grounded in what he believes about the Holy Spirit. You see, the Holy Spirit isn’t just a doctrine, or an idea, or a source of magic power. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God but also the Spirit of Jesus Christ. I won’t get into the debates that led to the split between the Eastern and Western churches, but there is a reason that we say in our creed the Holy Spirit is the Lord, the given of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit then is our entry point into the divine fellowship. It is our means of access to this grace in which we stand. But perhaps most importantly, it is the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, and who was poured out on the church at Pentecost, that makes us members of the body of Christ. 

We have no participation in Jesus or in the Church apart from the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who makes us all one in Christ Jesus, it is the Holy Spirit who leads us on our journey through this life, and it is the Holy Spirit who fills us with wisdom and insight and brings us more and more into conformity with Jesus Christ each and every day. At least we hope so. And because of this, with the Father and the Son, He is worshipped and glorified. So on the vertical dimension, we have our access to the heavenly realm and to the Trinity through the Holy Spirit who makes us one in Jesus Christ, and as important and stunning as that is, that is not Luke’s point in our passage this morning. 

Luke’s point is that those who have been filled with the Holy Spirit are called to go out into the world and do the work of Jesus Christ. The narrative works like this. Jesus Christ ascends to heaven, takes his seat at the right hand of God, and pours out his Spirit upon his Church to make them one with him and to send them out to do that work that he began to do in his earth