Mark 16:9-20
Acts 1:1-12
Luke 24:36-53

Kingdom

While we rarely hear the question asked, it is, nonetheless, the great and obvious question: Where is our most important Gospel? The Evangelist St. Luke wrote a lengthy, two-part Gospel, which scholars call simply "Luke-Acts." The first part details the life of Jesus from the prophecy of St. John the Baptist's birth to the Ascension of Christ. The second describes the ministry of the Apostles from the Ascension of Christ until St. Paul's arrival to Rome. Wouldn't we expect a three-volume set with a "middle volume" entitled "The Teachings of the Risen Christ"? May I ask a second obvious question: Who would dispute that this missing Gospel would have been by far the most important of the three? You see, all through the Gospel According to St. Luke and the other Synoptic Gospels, we hear Jesus saying (I paraphrase), "I teach now in parables, but I will teach plainly and directly." Everything is leading to this! Are we not on the edge of our seats awaiting that moment when everything will be made clear? For this would have been the climax of the three-act drama, in which the Holy Scriptures would have been unlocked, where the deepest meanings of the Advent of Christ would have been revealed. God's nature would have been revealed in a way never before seen. In the Gospel of St. John, the Lord promises,

And again,

This is why our faith is taught from two holy, inspired sources: yes, Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. Indeed, the Orthodox Church teaches that the Gospels began as Sacred Tradition, for they lived for decades only in oral form. Most scholars agree that the earliest parts of our New Testament, the Pauline Correspondence, was written during the mid 50s. The date of written composition of St. John's Gospel is set by some scholars as late as the year 100. But surely Sacred Tradition begins in the year 33. Doesn't Sacred Tradition begin in the Cenacle among the terrified disciples. Aren't they even then rehearsing stories, remembering things together, trying to piece it out? Indeed, the present season of our Church year celebrates this inauguration: the Resurrection of our Lord on Pascha, His Ascension, and Pentecost. These inaugurate Sacred Tradition — inspired, authoritative, and holy — which will be our only divine law for a period of decades.

Following the climax of the Resurrection and being conscious that the Lord will now unlock the Scriptures (as he repeatedly promised), how are we able to piece out what these teachings actually were? What was actually said? For these sentences were spoken in private quarters where we were not invited. How can we solve this mystery and all that was said during the forty-day period preceding His Ascension? First, we must pay very close attention to what is disclosed in the Gospels including that fifth Gospel, the Book of Acts. Second, we must read the Apostles and the Early Church Fathers, who were the living repository for all of these teachings.

This morning, let us begin this study in the opening paragraphs of Acts. A once-in-history scene attends the Ascension of the Lord. In these fleeting moments, Heaven is wedded to earth as Jesus stands visibly with one foot planted in each. And they ask Him, "Are you at this time going to restore the kingdom?" But this question could have several meanings. Which kingdom? The United Kingdom of Kings David and Solomon? The Roman Empire, ruled by Caesar? Or even a restoration of the original Kingdom, Eden, where the King of Heaven and earth saw no rival?

The whole question of kingship is deeply stamped on the Gospels. We might even say that the Gospels are about kingship. The Kingdom of God was a phrase unknown to Scripture until it appeared in the New Testament. Any first-century Jew hearing this phrase would not know what it meant. And its near relation, the phrase, the Kingdom of Heaven, appears only once, and that in the Greek Septuagint  (LXX), composed on the eve of Jesus birth, but not in the Hebrew Bible proper. It occurs there once and in the lately to appear Wisdom of Solomon (10:10).

We might say that the entire concept of post-Resurrection life being God's Kingdom is revealed to humankind with the Advent of God in the Person of the Lord Jesus. These phrases were unknown to history before then .... kingdom. Yet, they are everywhere to be found in the New Testament occurring ninety-seven times: Kingdom of God, Kingdom of Heaven. Then, we have this other startling fact: the title for Jesus in the original Greek Bible Κυριος (kyrios) means King (often translated Lord). It occurs in the New Testament more than seven hundred times. Of towering importance, it is the Greek word used in the LXX to refer to YHWH, God the Father.

You know, people debate this point: "What does Lord really mean? Isn't it like Señor in the Spanish Gospels, meaning Mister? Well, yes, if you understand that it refers to Mister .... Father God! It is a very special word. For God's Name cannot even be mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. Kyrios is a word having the highest dignity and prestige.

Anyone approaching the threshold to Asia from far out at sea (in the first century) would have beheld the great Temple to Roma erected on the Eastern Mediterranean's shore soaring high above one of the ancient world's greatest harbors, Caesarea Maritima. All was designed like a stage set to announce the universal power of Caesar, who himself aspired to the title of divus, or god. His power would have been ever-present as pagan temples were scattered throughout this once Jewish land. When Jesus asks the great question, "Who do you say that I Am?" His disciples gaze directly at Him but just behind Him at the Temple to Augustus Caesar at Caesarea Philippi. Caesarea Philippi at the headwaters of the Jordan, Caearea Maritima at the Eastern Mediterranean's greatest harbor. Caesar! Kingship is always the main subject. "We have one king and that is Caesar," the Jews told Pilate. And this sentence was potent enough to crucify the Son of God.

God, we know, is always deeply offended at the notion of earthly kingship. God tells Samuel when the Israelites demand a king, "They have not rejected you" (whom a king would replace), "but they have rejected me from being king over them"  (1 Samuel 8:7). And God's Son continues in this repugnance. For it would be the acclamation of Jesus' earthly kingship at the Mount of the Loaves and Fishes, which would signify the last straw for Him. And He set His face toward Jerusalem and to crucifixion.

If we are searching for the phrases that the Risen Christ used to unlock the Scriptures, we must start here, for the disciples equate Jesus' Resurrection with renewed hope for their own kingly power. They must have thought, "Our darkest night has now become a brilliant dawn! He lives! He is resurrected!" No wonder, the first question they ask is ....

But wait! There is another reversal in this sentence. The boundaries of this kingdom are not confined to Palestine or the Levant, but rather "to the end of the earth?! The Lord has put down the backward-looking lens peering into ancient history and has replaced it with a forward-looking one, past the twelve tribes, past Judea (the only surviving tribe), past Samaria (which Judeans accounted as beyond Hebrew territory) and thence beyond Israel to the whole earth.

And what is the Risen Christ's master subject following His forty-day tutorial with the disciples, a forty days alone with God in a different kind of wilderness? I quote from the opening of the Book of Acts:

The Ascension of the Lord transforms the mocking sarcasm of a wooden sign, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" (written in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew) and renders it in a majestic sincerity that can never be touched without the deepest reverence and the lowest bow and prostration: Kyrios, King Jesus.

The prayer that our Savior Christ hath taught us was understood by all who heard it to be apocalyptic, to invite the cataclysm of God's descent on the earth: "Thy Kingdom come." What? The Coming of God?! The Day of the Lord?! This had always been understood to be an awful Day of Reckoning:

But at the point of His Ascension, our King has revealed an Inner Kingdom, in that sense, a permanent Kingdom, which cannot be tarnished or prevailed upon. It is within each of us. And while the world is broken, we surely can present ourselves as acceptable and blameless before God. The life of blaring televisions, yakking radios, indecent Internet, and the "anything goes" attitudes of culture .... this is not to be our life. For our King has enjoined us to live with Him, with one foot, yes, on earth, but the other in Heaven. This is Ascension life. It is ours for the taking and having. And nothing — not secular humanists, not tempting demons, not Pandemics or worldly losses — can take it from us. "Are you a king?," Pilate asked Him.