The Friend of God
Acts 1:4-5
“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. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
For 40 days Jesus taught his disciples and his friends about the kingdom of God. When we slow down and truly see the priorities of Jesus in the resurrection, it creates a wonder and curiosity about these conversations.
What did Jesus say to them?
What did he teach?
What did he not reveal before the cross that he is saying now?
What do I not know?
I not only have asked these questions, there are many days I still ask them. Something happened in those 40 days, something that matters, and everything inside of me wants to know every detail of every moment. And in the mystery of all mysteries, the Bible tells us almost nothing about them. The four gospels give us a handful of stories of Jesus’ first appearances to his disciples and outside of that we only know one other thing:
Acts 1:4-8.
That’s it.
One story.
Five verses.
One command.
One question.
One answer.
The silence of the text feels almost deafening, but it must lead us to a greater conviction: the Bible doesn’t tell me everything that happened, but it does tell me everything I need. Therefore, Acts 1:4-5 are not just a random inclusion from Luke, but the radical invitation of 40 days of transformation distilled into one conclusion that came on one occasion.
It also reveals something else. While we may not know all of the conversations that took place, the rest of the book of Acts tells the stories of Jesus’ disciples and friends working out those conversations.
God chose to teach us about the kingdom of God not through disembodied ideas, but the tension of real people doing everything they could to live it out faithfully.
Five verses might be dedicated to those 40 days, but 28 chapters are dedicated to the men and women who gave their lives to live out all that Jesus taught them. It is now our turn to receive those teachings, and our teacher is the Holy Spirit through the stories of Jesus’ first friends.
This first moment matters. We can’t understand the rest of the story without it, for within two verses lies the heartbeat of the entire invitation: the only way to truly know about the kingdom of God is by first knowing Jesus’ other friend. He doesn’t show up much in precise detail in the gospels, but he’s the often unspoken companion that was with Jesus in all that he did.
Forty days boiled into one conclusion: you need the Holy Spirit.
When I read the stories of scripture I often find myself imagining what they were like. I do everything I can to put myself in the exact moment and try to understand the setting. This has become a normal practice when I read the Bible and even a part of how I write every sermon. There is a moment where I try to retell the exact same truth, but as simple as possible in my own words.
I did this for these two verses, and this is what I’ll leave you with:
I need Jesus’ friend.