Acts 1

What is it those angels invite us to see on the earth from the Mount of Olives?

I was drying dishes and absentmindedly singing the song that had been stuck in my head for days when my husband suddenly came barreling down the staircase and into the kitchen. Looking frantic, he asked me what had happened. We were both confused; he was convinced that I had cried out in pain, and he fully expected to walk in on a grisly cooking incident.

We quickly realized the source of the miscommunication. The song I’d been singing was Lady Gaga’s “Judas,” and I sounded like a lady in distress as I belted out, “Judas, Juda-a-a.”

Casting lots to determine how to fill an apostolic vacancy? Really?

A few homiletical observations on Acts 1:6-14:

• Luke is always concerned about place. Now, oddly, when it comes to Jesus' ascension, he's not.

A few homiletical observations on Acts 1:6-14:

• Luke is always concerned about place. Now, oddly, when it comes to Jesus' ascension, he's not.

When Acts says Jesus is "taken up to heaven," this is not a spatial claim.

History is written by the winners, and Judas didn't win.

Just like that, Jesus is gone. He reappears just long enough to say goodbye. Like a wraith, like a dream, he leaves behind no children, no estate, no writings, no trace of himself except this feeling that his presence was real, that his absence is temporary. Christians have this uncanny feeling that he was just here. He must have just stepped out.

I kept losing track of what I was going to say next. Yet it may have been my best sermon.