They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him
Acts 1:10-11 NIV 2011
I love this scripture. It goes hand-in-hand with another: Matthew 28:16-17 It’s one I’ve been meditating on for a while now. It’s the tail end there that is most intriguing. “…but some doubted.”
I wonder if the paraphrase: “…some of them wondered what the heck is going on!”
These were all the first graduates of Jesus Bible College LOL – these were the ones who made the cut! Team Jesus! Look at John 6:25-70! Lots didn’t make the cut!
Read through the gospels, take your pick, read em all, he tried to tell them… that he was departing… about his death and resurrection… and in John 14:25-26 that the Counsellor (The Holy Spirit) was coming – that they would it be alone!
Let him who cannot be alone beware of community…Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.
Life Together
Alone
“ Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. He will only do harm to himself, and to the community. Alone, you stood before God when he called you; alone you had to answer that call; alone you had to struggle and pray; and alone you will die, and give account to God. You cannot escape from yourself; for God has singled you out. If you refuse to be alone, you are rejecting, Christ call to you, and you can have no part in the community of those who are called. ‘The challenge of death comes to us all, and no one can die for another. Everyone must fight his own battle with death by himself, alone…, I will not be with you then, nor you with me’ Luther
But the reverse is also true: let him who is not in community. Beware of being alone. Into the community you were called, the call was not meant for you alone; in the community of the called you bear across, you, struggle, you pray. You are not alone, even in death, and on the last day, you will be only one member of the great congregation of Jesus Christ. If you score in the fellowship of the brethren, you reject the call of Jesus Christ, your solitude can only be hurtful to you. “if I die, then I am not alone in death; if I suffer, they (the fellowship) suffer with me” – Luther.
We recognize, then, that, only as we are within the fellowship can we be alone, and only he that is alone can live in the fellowship. Only in the fellowship do we learn to be rightly alone and only in a alone list do we learn to live rightly in the fellowship. It is not as though one preceded the other; both begin at the same time, namely, with the call of Jesus Christ.
Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Kitsalano, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Respect n a child
Running Down Vimy 