Kingdom Restoration
Text: Acts 1:6-14, John 17:1-11
When the apostles had come together, they asked Jesus, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”
This past Thursday, forty days after we celebrated Jesus’ resurrection, the Church celebrated Jesus’ ascension into heaven. Today we get that story again. I love the imagery of the moment. The disciples were standing around chatting with Jesus and then, as they were watching, Jesus was lifted up into heaven. They stared up at the clouds for quite some time, trying to figure out what just happened, when two men in white robes suddenly appeared next to them and asked them why they were searching the sky for Jesus. He will come to them in the same way that they saw him go into heaven. The image is so rich, so other worldly that we can sometimes miss the richness of the conversation that was happening right before Jesus went up to heaven.
In the few verses before our passage from Acts today we are told that Jesus instructed the apostles he had chosen. He showed them that he was indeed alive with convincing proofs.He spoke to them over forty days about God’s kingdom. He told them not to leave Jerusalem because in just a few days they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Then the passage we read today begins with the apostles’ question for Jesus, the one that had been stirring in their hearts over forty days of teaching and lessons about God’s kingdom. “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”
It’s a strange question. Surely they would have figured out by this time that Jesus was not on earth to bring about independence from Rome for the nation of Israel. They would never again have a great kingdom like the one David ruled over. That’s not what Jesus was about. Were they so nationalistic that they couldn’t get that thought out of their brains? And more importantly, why is that question highlighted by the author of Acts in this exact moment? Why was that question recorded right before Jesus ascended into heaven?
Perhaps there is symbolism here that our modern day American ears can’t quite comprehend. Perhaps there is a deeper meaning than the surface level question.
At home we have been watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. We’re in the fifth season and watched the 102nd episode the other day entitled “Darmok”. In this episode, the crew of the Enterprise encounter a species whom they cannot understand called the Tamarians. The crew of this foreign starship that they encounter keep repeating proper names and strange phrases. The phrase heard over and over again before the vessel beams their own captain and Captain Picard to a nearby planet is “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.” They then cast a scattering field so the crew can’t beam Picard back up nor can they speak to him.
The captain of the Tamarian vessel kept trying to give Picard a dagger and Picard kept trying to tell the captain that he didn’t want to fight him. The Tamarian would shake his head, sigh and say again, “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.” Picard and the crew learn independently from each other that the Tamarians speak in allegory. The Tamarians use the images from commonly known stories to convey ideas to one another. As one crew member described it, it would be like us saying, “Juliet on the balcony.” Those of us who grew up with Shakespeare know that Juliet is from Romeo and Juliet, and many of us know the play well enough to know the balcony scene where Juliet cries out for Romeo. But the crew of the Enterprise had no idea what the Tamarians’ stories were. How could they communicate when they didn’t know? What was “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra”?
The following day, Picard discovers that there is a mysterious entity on the planet he has been beamed down to. The captain of the Tamarians passes him the dagger yet again and it is made clear that he wants to fight the entity together. The Tamarian is injured and as Picard cares for his wounds, we learn through the Tamarian’s brief descriptions the story of Darmok and Jalad. They both arrived at the island of Tanagra at separate times. They battled a beast. They left together. Picard understood that the purpose of beaming down to this planet was to build relationship by taking on a common foe. They were to be like Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra, coming to a place of danger as strangers but leaving together as friends. The captain of the Tamarians died and Picard was beamed back to the Enterprise. He was able to communicate with the Tamarians using the allegories he had learned from their captain and the two ships left in peace.
I wonder today if the phrase “the restoration of the kingdom of Israel” is not a bit like “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra”. Do we really know its full meaning in the culture of Jesus?
We certainly aren’t completely befuddled by it like the crew of the Enterprise. We have enough background to know that this was a common hope, the literal restoration of the kingdom of Israel. People did want to take Israel back and have independence. There were great uprisings, like that of the Maccabees, which is recorded in our apocrypha, a group of books that Luther took out of the the Old Testament because they were later additions and not part of the Jewish Bible, but are still used by the Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican Churches. People did not want to live in occupied territory, they wanted to govern themselves.
But allegorically, what did it mean to restore the kingdom of Israel? We don’t typically speak allegorically now within the Church, but the truth is that allegory is one of the oldest methods of sharing the Christian message. These allegories were even woven into the New Testament. Even Jesus used them, referring to things like the “sign of Jonah” to reference his upcoming death and resurrection. People would point to events in the Old Testament and extrapolate on them to explain the Christian message. Back when there was no New Testament, no set group of Christian scriptures, they used the scriptures they did have, the Hebrew Bible, and pulled out references to prove Jesus is the Messiah. This is why it’s hard to read certain passages in Isaiah without thinking of Jesus. We have been using these as references to Jesus since the beginning of Christianity.
So what allegorically does the restoration of the kingdom of Israel mean in Acts? It’s not a physical restoration. I think after forty days with Jesus explaining his message to them the apostles would have known as much. I don’t think this is an example of the apostles still not understanding Jesus. By now, at this point in the narrative, they weren’t as confused and naive. They had spent a great deal of time with the risen Christ. I think they are talking about a spiritual restoration, a revival. They longed for all the people of Israel to see and know and understand Jesus. Their hearts were ablaze with the love of Christ and they wanted every person around them to feel this too. When would everybody experience what they had just experienced? When would every heart be turned towards God and all people worship the Lord in Spirit and truth? That’s what they are asking. They are asking for what all the prophets before Jesus had sought: the return of the people to worship God, for them to no longer worship false gods or their own false images of who the deity is. When will everyone see and know God as they had seen and knew God?
Jesus told them that the answer to that question isn’t for them to know. They have to leave that in God’s hands. But they will receive the power of the Holy Spirit and they will witness to Jesus not only in Israel, but to the ends of the earth. They can’t know how long it will take for all hearts to turn towards God and love God alone, but they are a part of that mission. They are given the task of continuing Jesus’ work on earth.
After Jesus ascended into heaven, they returned to Jerusalem. In the city they came together and devoted themselves to prayer along with the women who had been so faithful to Jesus. Here is the moment in the narrative where we know things will never be the same again because the apostles know their mission.
The first time Jesus left them, they scattered. At Jesus’ arrest, they all vanished. Only the women, who knew they were unlikely to be crucified themselves for following Jesus, stayed together with Jesus. Even before his trial had begun the apostles denied him and avoided him. They didn’t want to die with him.
The second time Jesus left them, the moment of the ascension, they gathered and prayed. They planned for their mission to tell the whole world about Jesus. Between the end of our reading today and our Pentecost reading for next week they did something incredible. They appointed a new apostle to replace Judas. Even before the Holy Spirit lit on each of them like fire and spread throughout the crowd listening to them they were planning for this revival. They were planning for the restoration of the kingdom, not a physical one but a spiritual one. Hearts and minds would be turned toward the only true God. Lives would change forever. People would be able to act and live in the ways God desires for humanity. They knew it was coming. They knew they had a part in that. They expected it and they planned for it. Ten days later, the restoration was beginning. It continues to this day.
So where is our part in all this? We too have the power of the Holy Spirit among us. We haven’t seen Jesus in the flesh, but his Spirit comes among us and lives in us. We take it into our bodies every time we take communion. How can this allegory of restoration ignite our imaginations and renew our convictions? What does it look like for God’s kingdom to be here on earth?
Perhaps it looks like Jesus’ prayer in our Gospel lesson from John today, asking fervently for God to glorify him so he could glorify God. I spent a bit of time this week trying to figure out what all this glorification language meant. I turned to my handy dandy Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible for answers. It didn’t have an entry for glorification, but it did have an entry for glory. It defines glory as “That aspect of a person or God worthy of praise, honor, or respect…” (p. 507). What aspects of you are worthy of praise, honor, or respect? What do you like most about yourself? What do you think is most honorable, praiseworthy, or respectful about our community or culture? Pull those out. Magnify them. This is what Jesus asked God to do for him, just as he has tried to do that for God. We can try to do that for God in our interactions with each other. If, in our interactions with God, ourselves, and each other we can pull, emphasize, and try to live into that which is praiseworthy, honorable, and respectful, we are glorifying God and helping the kingdom of God to be restored among us. We don’t always get it right. We fail all the time. But we can also pull each other up when we do things wrong and remind each other who it is we are trying to be. We can rely on the Holy Spirit to help us out. We can plan for a better day.
May we seek the restoration of God’s ways in our world today, ways that honor, praise and respect each other and God. May we seek the wisdom of God in prayer. May we bring Christ to a world who so desperately needs him. Amen.
