Taken Up Before Their Eyes: Acts 1:1-11

In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven.

Luke continued his account. The Gospel told what Jesus began. Acts would tell what Jesus continued—through his Spirit, through his church. The story was not over; it was entering a new chapter.

After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.

Forty days. The risen Jesus appearing, disappearing, reappearing. Convincing proofs—eating fish, showing wounds, teaching Scripture. The resurrection was not rumor but repeated encounter. And his topic: the kingdom of God. The same message he had preached before the cross, now vindicated by the empty tomb.

On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.

Wait. The hardest command for eager disciples. Don't scatter, don't start, don't act—wait. In Jerusalem, the city that had crucified their Lord. Wait for a gift. The Father had promised something.

For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

John's baptism was preparation. What was coming would be completion. Not water but Spirit. Not external washing but internal transformation. A few days away.

Then they gathered around him and asked him, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?

The question they had been holding. Now? Is this the moment? The kingdom restored to Israel? They still imagined thrones and territories, Roman expulsion, Davidic restoration.

He said to them: It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.

Not for you to know. The timing belonged to the Father. The disciples' job was not calendar calculation but faithful obedience.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

The mission statement. Power coming—not political power but Spirit power. Witnesses—not conquerors but testifiers. The geography of mission: Jerusalem first, then Judea and Samaria, then the ends of the earth. The book of Acts would follow this outline exactly.

After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

Taken up. Not walking away, not fading out—ascending. Before their very eyes—they watched it happen. Rising from the ground, rising through the air, rising until a cloud received him. The cloud of God's presence, the same cloud that led Israel, that filled the tabernacle, that overshadowed the transfiguration—that cloud took him.

They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them.

Still staring upward. Necks craned. Eyes fixed on the sky where he had disappeared. And then—two figures in white. Angels, as at the tomb.

Men of Galilee, they said, why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.

The gentle rebuke. Why are you staring? He's coming back. The same Jesus—not a different one, not a spiritual idea, but this same Jesus. The way he went—visibly, bodily, on the clouds—is the way he returns.

The disciples had watched him die. They had seen him risen. Now they watched him ascend. And they received the promise: he would return.

The story was not ending. It was just beginning. Jerusalem waited. The Spirit was coming. The ends of the earth would hear.