Back to the Future: Acts Then & Now. The Future Spirit Now
by Ken Wilson
Remember Back to the Future : Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd? High-Schooler Marty McFly catapulted back to '50s where he sees his parents in their teens and accidentally changes hx of how they met.
Time travel stories all the rage after Einstein demonstrated that time is part of fabric of space, renamed space-time. As a person speeds up relative to a stationary observer less time passes for the speeding person. If one twin goes to Alpha Centauri & back at warp speed, he would arrive home having aged less than his stay-at-home twin.
Time isn't the absolute, static, unbendable thing we thought it was.
Something like this is evident in the gospels and book of Acts.
Key to understanding the gospel of the kingdom.
When Jesus rose from the dead the glorious future broke into the present. When we look back at resurrection, ascension and the outpouring of the Spirit, we are looking Back to the Future.
In this series we will consider 3 Back to the Future Realities: the future Spirit brought into the present, the future community brought into the present, and the future judgment brought into the present.
Set up Back to the Future scenario…. Imagine you were part of a nation that had been given a promise concerning a glorious future: a time when wars would cease, no enemies, no threats, no global recessions. Republicans would lie down with Democrats. Black, White, Hispanic, Asian & Arab all get along.
The nations would come to your capital city in that Day to resolve their differences. The blessing that God gave your beloved nation would be given to all the nations and theirs would be given to you.
The nation of course, is Israel, the holy, chosen, beloved community
Vision of a glorious future includes a swirling montage of prophetic images. Details never nailed down--too glorious a thing…
The stuff of hopes and dreams and visions. But it was NOT just pie in the sky. This kept Israel alive when others would have been crushed….
Imagine this future represented by this pink band, stretched across platform--the horizon of promise….
Jesus came to Israel to lead her into the glorious future…[What leaders do: "building a bridge to 21st century"]
Jesus came to lead Israel into her mission: to be the light of the world, to bring the blessing of Abraham to the nations….
He came to endure Israel's sufferings--past, present, and future.
He died to take on the punishment we deserved….but he also died to pass through the veil that separates heaven and earth---in order to open a portal between them.
We would know nothing of all this; it would buried in the footnotes of history if not for the empty tomb and rumors of resurrection. And fear-ridden disciples transformed into bold witnesses.
To fellow Jews of Jesus' time, his resurrection meant the future had broken into the present.
Not all at once as expected….but as a foretaste of coming attractions.
[TO BAND] Jesus is the forerunner going ahead of us to launch resurrection [STRETCH] Stretching the future back into our present.
Book of Acts is a Time Travelogue. Jesus raids the cupboard of the future and stretches the future to present-dwellers like us….to draw us into a future he already knows. [release band]
This is the framework for understanding Acts of Apostles….
Acts 1: 1-3. Appearances in gospels disjointed. He appears suddenly, disappears suddenly--looks like his old self, walks thru walls. Like living in a movie with flashbacks, except flash-forwards.
Acts 1: 4-5 Emphatic instructions: wait here, in a few days the Spirit will be given….but their minds are on something else…
Acts. 1: 6 They know glorious future is knocking at door. So when is the kingdom to be restored to Israel? When does our nation come into all that was promised? [shows power of their communal hope]
Acts 1: 7-8 He's not telling when. Not our concern. Our concern is the mission to the Jerusalem, Samaria and the nations. Forget about dates and times--focus on the mission. Speed the future's arrival.
With that, again suddenly, he slips through a tear in fabric of space time, which they perceive as a cloud…and he's gone, back to the future, right next door to heavenly dimension…..
Acts 1: 9-11 What a way to put an exclamation point on what you just said! After such a startling exit, they will be gathering collective memory: "What did you see? What just happened? What did he say before that exit?"
They take care of some business, then feast of Pentecost arrives…
Acts 2: 1-4 Pay close attention to words. They hear a sound like a wind [not wind itself, but a sound such as it generates--train?]….
from heaven [not just from sky, but something about the sound had a "transcendent" feel] They see what seemed to be [not exactly were] tongues of fire resting on each one. Filled with Spirit [like prophets of old] and speak different languages.
Acts 2: 5-13 Replay of one of founding stories of Israel in Genesis (Gen. 11)--but with a redemptive twist. After a cataclysmic flood, early humans regrouped. Speaking one language, they build a tower. [Early advances in computing depended on four-tran] God alarmed and said, "If they pulled this off, nothing will be impossible for them as they will turn this to evil"--so he confused their language, devolved into babel, to slow progress.
Called "Tower of Babel" because everyone spoke a different language, so the project was halted. And thus the nations were scattered.
Pentecost is a redemptive reversal. There's a Babel going on in upper room but it is not scattering people; it's gathering them. Pilgrims from around the Empire are in town and hear a babel of different tongues.
Each hears his own language spoken. When you are in a foreign land and hear your mother tongue, it feels like home! This Babel draws the nations together into the arms of Father's Love:
Not unity by uniformity, squashing diversity for the sake of efficiency.
A more powerful unity through diversity---only possible with an infusion of God-Love.
This is what the Jesus community, infused by the Spirit is to become:
a community moved by the Spirit to walk in shoes of outsiders, foreigners…..learn their language, enter their world [those sinners?] yes as Jesus entered our sinful world….
The gift of tongues is a sign gift. Besides, "Speak in tongues" what does it signify? Don't sit on your butts and make the nations learn your language. Let the Spirit teach you their language! God loves the Greeks--learn their language! God loves scientists--learn the language of science. God loves the young--learn their language!
Old way of religion is "God listens to me, therefore you need to learn to speak my language if you want him to listen to you! My way or the highway! Nothing you have is worth my learning."
"You want to learn about Israel's God? Learn Hebrew!"
That's not way of radical love and whatever God is about it's a radical new way to love. (Vatican II 1960's dropped Latin mass, released diversity of many different languages for worship--coincided with charismatic outbreak among Catholics worldwide. My friend Dave Mangan first Catholic to speak in tongues at Duquene Weekend.).
See how demanding love is? Easy to fall into comfortable in-house shop-talk [talk tough on outsider sin] and then blame outsiders who don't find way home. Harder to walk in someone else's shoes.
Tongues is a sign: we can't do this on our own, need Spirit to empower us!
Acts 2: 14-21 See Back to the Future theme? We look back to the gift of the Spirit on Pentecost, but they looked forward to gift of the Spirit at consummation. It was a defining mark of the glorious future. When we look back to Pentecost we are looking Back to the Future.
This is the coming kingdom breaking in to our present!
This pertains to us now: The best way to miss the Spirit is to look back to a glorious past in hopes of it returning. "In college I was really fired up! Back in the day things were great!"
The Jesus action is always the future breaking into the present!
Is there some glorious past in your spiritual life that you're trying to recreate? In process of looking in rear view mirror you may miss God coming down the road toward you.
Applies in very practical way: One of marks of dying order we still inhabit (like stinking linens of Lazarus): the sense of disqualification.
We're too old or we're too young for God to use us. [I hear both]
We're too male or too female [husbands feel they are not as s spiritual as wife; women say "I'm not sure I could lead men!]
But mark of Israel's prophetic hope was inclusive compared to their present narrow mind-set: God would find a place for eunuchs in glorious day, for Egyptians, Gentile nations would find a home in God! In present, only lucky landowners could sit under their own fig tree. In glorious future, everyone would have a fig tree to sit under!
When we take our ill-gotten knowledge of good and evil to exclude people--no room for them--it boomerangs and we begin to secretly believe there's no room for us. Judge not, lest ye be judged.
MASSIVE INFERIORITY COMPLEX! Leftover of estranged-exile status
But the day when no one is disqualified has arrived!
Spirit brings future into present: "'In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.
"for everyone" repeated: "And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Later: "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call." (38-39)
Salvation [being made whole], wiping out of sins, gift of Spirit--these were all understood as part of the promised future.
But now it's available in the present, not to elite, but to all.
We're living in a movie not with flashbacks but with flash-forwards:
How do we get into that movie? [pouch slingshot]
Surrender to embrace of Jesus. "He has wrapped me in the garments of salvation, he has wrapped me a cloak of saving justice" (Is. 61: 10)
Like a steel pellet wrapped in the pouch of a slingshot….
We repent, heed the call--if anyone is thirsty let him come….
Jesus is the portal to this future-present tense….
SUM UP: Emphasize two points and apply them.
1. Jesus calls us into a future he has already entered and is sprinkling over us….this changes our relationship to future.
We live now in a creative tension between the present and the future.
Some aspects of the future remain open, but some aspects of the
future have been secured….
The Spirit from the blessed future infuses us with confidence to
boldly participate in bringing the blessed future about.
Those who overturned slavery were bold to do so because they believed in a future where slavery didn't belong.
MLK said, "The long arm of the universe bends toward justice."
The future is on the side of the just….Jesus had given him a
conviction about the coming future and that empowered him to
participate in bringing it about. The future is not a lost cause!
Parents, open your heart to future hope for your children! It's your job to believe in your children's future.
Like Jesus met unstable Simon, called him (prophetically) Peter-Rock.
2. Let's give ourselves to the redemptive reversal of Babel.
Are we going to be the people who say, "We've got, come and get it.
Learn our culture, speak our language, and then you get the goods."
People want me to speak in the language of "objective truth."
By that they mean "true truth" but they want language: objective t.
That language is part of modern-scientific worldview that most people don't speak. The Bible doesn't speak that language. It's not biblical.
The Bible speaks the language of Personal Truth: God is true, Jesus is true. Father, Son, Spirit are true.
Is this the mission strategy of Pentecost? Teach everyone language our old language? Or let Spirit teach us their language--speak in other tongues?
When I first heard about gift of tongues, it made me nervous!
Are you willing to learn a different language for the sake of the kingdom mission? Language of an academic discipline, world of finance, business, or arts…
Language of Alcoholics Anonymous? Language of science?
Language of the streets where homeless reside?
Language of those who passionate for the environment?
Sign language for deaf?
God is in that….learn it well so you can salt it with the kingdom, infuse it with the Spirit, baste it in the love of God.
Husbands-wives: willing to learn the love language of your spouse? I'm so bad at this, I need the Spirit to infuse me for this. What does Nancy experience as love and how can I speak that language?
We are to become a church that speaks many different languages. Let's not be threatened by the differences, let's see it as a sign of the Spirit poured out….the future breaking in.