Reading Luke/Acts Together #48 – What Jesus Began

Willie Jennings opens his great commentary on the first verses in Acts by declaring “The revolution has begun.” Jesus touched off a revolution by showing up, then healing, loving all the wrong or unlovable people, putting the smug righteous people in their place, healing, forging a new alternative community, and finally pioneering the way for all of us beyond death into eternal life – and empowering us to live now as a resurrected people.

But as Acts opens, Jesus exits. He’s gone. What would happen? A new, yet kindred revolution was touched off. Acts is God’s “honeymoon album” with his people – or the “constitution” for the Church, but in dramatic story form.

Luke’s very first sentence tips us off to where he’s going, how the very first Christians conceived of themselves, and what God is calling us to do today: “I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up” (Acts 1:1). Jesus began to do certain things – and so whatever his agenda had been, this became their script, their to-do list, their vision of the rest of their lives. Jesus began things; the church, his Body, continues those things, not something different, or of their own choosing! Jesus started what they and we are tasked with moving forward.

Easter isn’t a season that passes. The mind-boggling fact of Jesus’ resurrection means we are forever attached to him; we find meaning and purpose insofar as we mimic him, and enact what he began to do.

Our problem? We merely glance at Jesus, and don’t know all that much about what he began to do. And so we wind up doing whatever we prefer. We get busy with our pet projects. We try to glue Jesus on the outside of what isn’t of Jesus at all! God is merciful when we do this – but we can do better, far better. And there’s so much more joy, and purpose, and even success when we do.

Are we doing what Jesus began? Is there continuity between my life, or my Church’s activities, and what Jesus was about? Are there disconnects? and if so, why? Jesus was counter-cultural, scarily revolutionary, and compellingly marvelous. With whom did he eat? Where did he go? Why did they kill him? Jesus touched the untouchables, he befriended the despised, he offended the mighty, he felt immense compassion for the poor, he never played it safe, he waved off every social barrier; Jesus read the Scriptures not as “once upon a time” tales, but declared ambitiously “Today the Scripture is fulfilled” (Luke 4:21).

Jesus’ first followers were determined to fulfill Scripture, and all Jesus began. To join them, we need new brains, a soul transplant, a serious inspection of the Bible’s actual contents, and mysterious power beyond our conceiving. We need each other! You can't be Jesus by yourself. Paul told Jesus’ first followers: You are the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27). You were saved to be part of a Body; instead of going home alone, Christians banded together and hit the roads to be Jesus, to guarantee (even if in wobbly ways) that Jesus’ glorious revolution continued, that untouchables were loved, that God was known, that compassion became instinct, that the Scriptures would be fulfilled today.

They came to be known as “apostles.” Not the same as “disciples”! “Disciple” means student, learner, follower – and Jesus had a dozen or more of those. Acts now turns to “apostles,” a word not used much in the rest of the world back then. It means “sent,” with connotations like the Portuguese sending out explorers and navigators, an expedition to discover new worlds – or even to “colonize,” expanding territories and fostering trade.

The first disciples were sent. They didn’t just go. We don’t just go out there or even into church to be Christians. We are sent. The Church is sent. The rest of Acts will narrate dramatic stories of what being sent, exploring and colonizing looks like. Stay tuned!