Can I Get a Witness? w/ Terry Ishee W2

Anthony: Let’s pivot to our next pericope of the month. It’s Luke 24:44-53. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for Ascension Sunday, which is May the 12th. Terry, would you read it for us, please?

Terry: I’d be honored to.

Jesus said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the Law from Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” ⁴⁵ Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. ⁴⁶ He said to them, “This is what is written: the Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, ⁴⁷ and a change of heart and life for the forgiveness of sins must be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. ⁴⁸ You are witnesses of these things. ⁴⁹ Look, I’m sending to you what my Father promised, but you are to stay in the city until you have been furnished with heavenly power.” ⁵⁰ He led them out as far as Bethany, where he lifted his hands and blessed them. ⁵¹ As he blessed them, he left them and was taken up to heaven. ⁵² They worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem overwhelmed with joy. ⁵³ And they were continuously in the temple praising God.

Anthony: I can hear Kirk Franklin in my head chanting, “Can I get a witness?” Yeah, and Jesus said you are witnesses of these things. But I’m curious; maybe we don’t have a full comprehension of what it means to be a witness. Is it just seeing the goodness of God?

Privatizing that or is there more to it?

Terry: Yeah, I think that’s a fantastic question. Again, I think we have to keep it simple. I think if you are born anew, if you are a follower of Jesus, if Jesus is king and Lord of your life, there has been something transformative in you, right?

God is doing a work in us. And that is something that we witness. And by faith, we witness who Jesus is, that he is the incarnated God, that he came and lived a life amongst us and lived it as perfect as you can. No one could live a better life. And even in spite of that perfect life of doing no wrong was found by man to be wrong and died on our behalf and in his death, not being defeated, rose again and ascended. Here in this passage, we see him returning to heaven, being taken up.

We are a witness of this. There is a tradition that we are a collective witness to who Jesus is and the work of the Father. I do believe that one, being a witness is a bit self-serving and I don’t say that negatively. It is good. I am grateful that I have eyes to see who Jesus is. That is a blessing and a gift from God. And I have people in my life who do not have that gift. That they, for some reason, they just cannot wrap their mind around the idea of Jesus as Lord, as Jesus as king. And my heart grieves for them. But I don’t think that witness stays there alone.

Being a witness isn’t for my own purpose, my own satisfaction, my own worth, but I am to be a witness for the world; I am to give a report of what I have seen, right? And here’s the thing. I think again, this is so natural in what it means to be human. I think the human experience is to be a witness because we give testimony to all sorts of things, right?

There’s not a person on this earth that doesn’t give witness to something. The question is what are you giving testimony to? And I’m not advocating that we just walk around and talk about Jesus ad nauseam. I don’t think that’s what Jesus would want.

But I think in our everyday life, are we able to attribute who we are and what we exist for? Do we give attribution? Do we give credit to who Jesus is in our life? Can we actually speak of the king and kingdom?

And yeah, so that’s my quick answer. I think we have to be active that it’s not just simply, oh yeah, I saw this, I received this and then it ends with me receiving. But I think there is a sense of receiving and now giving back to others.

Anthony: Yeah, you mentioned it in one of the previous passages about, or the previous one about love. It moves. There’s a movement. Love cannot be static. It’s got to move toward the other. That’s what it always does. And witnessing, birthed out of love, has to move toward others, right? You can’t keep the story to yourself, man. What good is that? Share it with your lives.

Speaking of the Ascension, it’s often considered one of the big six of Jesus’ earthly activities: birth, baptism, transfiguration, death, resurrection, and Ascension. But it seems to me the Ascension is the one that’s a little bit overlooked and under discussed.

So, from your perspective, Terry, if you agree, why pay attention to Jesus ascending back to the Father?

Terry: Fantastic question. I agree wholeheartedly and a little soapbox is going to pop out. So, if you want to get your preacher Kirk Franklin on, here we go. No, I won’t go there.

I think one of the reasons why we don’t discuss the Ascension as much is because you can’t talk about the Ascension without a commission, the ascension and the commissioning that Jesus has for us as the witnesses — John 20:21, as the Father has sent me, I now send you. Throughout all of Jesus’ life, he was hinting towards this idea that we are the sent ones that will go and bear witness into the world. That we will go from Jerusalem into Judea and to the ends of the earth.

That’s who we are. It’s part of our identity. We are both created in the image of God, but we are also created as the sent ones of God. And we don’t talk about the ascension because we don’t want to talk about the commission, at times, because the commission costs, right?

I heard someone recently was preaching, and I was fascinated. And at first thought I was like, oh, I got to wrestle with the theology of this. Is this correct? And I haven’t yet pulled away from it. I think it’s spot on. And what they were saying was Jesus’ work towards salvation is free. It costs you nothing except to receive it. It is grace and grace alone that we are found and made right with Jesus. But discipleship, obedience, apprenticeship to Jesus as king and Lord, that cost.

That’s the cost of taking up your cross, to deny yourself. And so, when we talk about the Ascension, it’s just impossible to talk about the Ascension and not talk about that. We will be witnesses.

And the beautiful thing about that is part of the Ascension is that he gives us this power. He gives us the Holy Spirit. We have not been sent to do this of our own accord or our own will, our own power, but that we have been supercharged through the Holy Spirit. That the Spirit is in us, dwells inside of us, and flows from us. And all we have to do is find where God is moving and working and join him.

And there’s something that just comes alive inside of us. And it doesn’t matter how charismatic you are on that scale, and that’s fine. But the Spirit is the Spirit. And so, if it moves you at one mile per hour, it moves you at a hundred miles per hour, it’s the same Spirit. And so can we give way to the Spirit and say, Lord, move through me as I just live an obedient life.

I think that’s how I see it, that I think the Ascension and commissioning are just so intertwined because it was his last thing said for us is that the Spirit is coming, it’s going to indwell in you, and from there you will go and be my witnesses.

Anthony: Yeah. And that’s that word in the Greek and Acts 1, that you’ll be my witnesses. The word for witnesses, martyr, it’s martyrdom. You talk about costly! Like you were referring to, this will cost you your life and it will give you your life. Paradoxical. Absolutely.