Two Guys Surprise

Midweek Study with Pastor Edith
April 3, 2024
Acts 1:1-11

After Jesus’ resurrection, he appeared to many in his physical body for a period of 40 days. (Interesting how the number 40 is so significant and connectional; 40 days and nights Noah and his family float in the boat, 40 years Moses leads the people through the wilderness, 40 days for Jesus to deal with temptation, and now after his resurrection, for 40 days Jesus makes several appearances to his disciples. As Dr. Henry Halley writes; “to banish forever from their minds any doubt as to His continued existence as a living person. What a wonderful experience in those 40 days, to have thus seen, talked with, eaten with, and felt with their hands, Jesus in His actual crucified and glorified body, as He appeared and disappeared, through closed doors out of nowhere and back into the nowhere, all climaxed, as, with the blessing of His uplifted hands, He rose, gradually, up and up, and disappeared in the clouds”(Halley’s Bible Handbook 1965 edition, pg. 560).

Verses 10-11, of our text in the book of Acts, tells us that the disciples were staring up into the sky where they, saw with their own eyes, Jesus ascending into the clouds. It was there and then that two men dressed in white suddenly stood beside them. This must have been shocking, to say the least, that while the disciples were gazing into the cloud where Jesus disappears, so much like a child watching their Daddy drive away for a long trip, two guys show up. I wonder if these were the same two guys that met the women at the empty tomb in Luke 24:4; “While they were wondering about this [who would roll the stone away], suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightening stood beside them”.

I don’t know about you, but I am not fond of being surprised, though I do love a good game of hide and seek. I can just imagine, how jumpy the disciples, men and women, would be at such times like they were experiencing. At the empty tomb, mourning the loss of one they loved so much and had hoped would free them for the corrupt government they lived under. On hill, after a glorious 40 days of sporadic visits with Jesus, and now, Surprise! Two guys stand with them and tell them they will see him again, but when? Isn’t that what people are asking still? When will Jesus return? Maybe we missed it, maybe we’ve neglected Him so much He decided not to return? Let me reassure you, just at the two guys did for the disciples; “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 apostle John writes; “Look, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all the peoples of the earth will mourn because of him. So shall it be! Amen. ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, sys the Lord God, who is, and who was and who is to come, The Almighty’”(Revelation 1:7-8).

So, what should we do while we wait? Love Him more and more every day, and look for ways to love others into the Kingdom of God. We just might surprise the world.

Amen!