You’ve Got to Move It, Move It

1 June 2025   Luke 24:46-53

The Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

“Stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”  Luke 24:49​

Jesus’ last earthly words to his disciples were, “You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). From the beginning the gospel has been about movement, from one person to another, one city to another, one country, one culture to another, from earth to heaven. That was the principal reason why Jesus told His disciples to “stay in the city” (Luke 24:49). It was much more common for reform movements of any kind in those days to be based out in the wilderness somewhere. There were practical reasons for this – reform movements tended to stir up opposition from local authorities, there were distractions of family and work, and so the wilderness seemed a more secure place to maintain the internal integrity of a movement. The separation from population centers, however, meant that these movements tended to become inbred and irrelevant. Nationalist movements like those of Theudas and Judas the Galilean (cf. Acts 5:35-39) were based in the desert, and died there. There was no place to go from the desert, and Jesus did not want that for the Church. So, he told his followers to remain in the city. They would receive power from on high in the city, and as it turned out for the city.

Jesus didn’t stop there. Not long after He recruited Saul of Tarsus, raised in a college town in Asia Minor, fluent in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek (and possibly proficient in Latin as well – he chose a Latin trade name, “Paul”), meticulously trained in the Hebrew scriptures, and by trade a Tentmaker. Travel was very difficult in those days. A journey of any distance meant going from one water source to another water source at least every couple of days if not every day, and there was no guarantee that a water source would be near a town. Tentmakers provided moveable shelter, portable vessels for food and water, and information on the best routes to take. In short, Saul was the ideal instrument for moving the gospel from one place to another, and he established churches in cities and towns along many of the Roman roads of Asia Minor that he knew so well.

The gospel has always been about movement. Christians eventually used the Roman roads to spread across the Roman Empire. Later they would use ships to cross the sea to new lands like North America, artificial waterways like the Erie Canal to reach the Midwest, the Oregon Trail and later railroads to reach the Pacific coast. Radio, and then television, and then the internet meant bigger and far faster ways to move the gospel to far more people. “Stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high” – engage large population centers with the gospel so that it will move “to the end of the earth.”

It is still true, however, that in large population centers there is opposition and distraction. There are people who will try to reduce the gospel so that it no longer offends them, threatens them, challenges them. In the modern era opponents have tried to reduce the gospel to social ethics. Christians don’t bother anyone if they are just feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and providing social services for the poor. Many Christians have bought into this reduction, and then been puzzled why the movement of the gospel has slowed, even stopped in some places. To be sure the social witness of Christianity is of vital importance, and was commanded by Jesus. But that work is not the goal of the gospel. Heaven is – the baptism of the Holy Spirit, accepting the invitation into the inner life of God, eternal life, of which the resurrection of Jesus is the most obvious sign. Social ethics is just to get and keep people’s attention. The supernatural, saving message of heaven is the goal.

Stay in the city. Get the attention of large population centers by the purity of your life. Then proclaim the resurrection of Jesus and the nearness of the Kingdom of God. That is the way the gospel moves – one person to another, one city to another, one country, one culture to another, from earth to heaven.