Why Are You Looking Up? -- Seventh Sunday of Easter

Acts 1:6-14

May 17, 2026

 

            Expecto Patronum.

Is anyone familiar those two words? I’ll say them again. Expecto Patronum. They are most recognizable from the Harry Potter books and movies. The first time we encounter them is in the third book of the series, The Prisoner of Azkaban. These two words are a spell that when cast bring forth a person’s patronus. A patronus is a creature that protects the person who casts the spell from these terrible monstrosities called dementors. The patronus can be any creature. Harry’s patronus was a large stag, just as his father’s was. But whatever form the patronus takes, it comes to protect the one who calls it.

I’m not going to do a deep dive into Harry Potter today. But these words, Expecto Patronum, were not made up by the author. She did not just throw some vowels and consonants together and call it a spell. Expecto Patronum is a phrase that comes from the Latin, and it means “I await a guardian.”

Waiting for a guardian comes at the end of our passage from acts. The disciples and certain women who had ministered alongside them, including Mary the mother of Jesus and Jesus’ brothers are waiting. They are waiting in the upper room, perhaps the same room where they had eaten a final meal with Jesus in the days before his death, where he had washed their feet, and where one of their number had left from to do the work of betrayal. So in this upper room, the people closest to Jesus have gathered there once more to wait.

But before the waiting, they were gathered around Jesus himself. In the opening verses of this first chapter of Acts, Luke – the author of both the gospel and of Acts – notes that the risen Jesus has spent forty days with the disciples talking to them about the kingdom of God.

I had never considered the reason why Jesus did not ascend immediately into heaven after his resurrection. Why does it take 40 days before he ascends? Like the Israelites’ 40 years and Jesus’s 40 days in the wilderness, the number 40 signifies a time of preparation. Jesus’s earthly ministry might have been over with his crucifixion and resurrection, but his preparation with the disciples was clearly not. He prepares them for the kingdom of God – a kingdom that is not like the kingdoms they understand and know. The kingdom of God is not just the restored kingdom of Israel, writ large. Even though the disciples clearly hope that it will be. The kingdom of God, as one commentator wrote, is not about the Davidic kingdom returning in all its previous glory. It is not a human kingdom founded on power, but it is God’s realm which is both here and still to come. It is a kingdom based on love, on justice, on mercy. It is a realm that defies human terminology and labeling. It is a kingdom far wider, far greater, farther reaching than any kingdom the disciples – or us – could conceive with our limited understanding.

So, now at the end of the 40 days, Jesus tells the disciples that they are to wait for the power that will come upon them through the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit comes, they will be his witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and throughout the whole world. And just when the disciples thought they could not see anything more amazing than witnessing their rabbi resurrected, they see him lifted up into a cloud and taken from their sight.

Of course they stood there gazing heavenward. It makes sense to me that they remained rooted in that place, eyes fixed on the last spot where they saw their beloved teacher. I can understand their reluctance to turn away. I can relate to their hesitation to move on, to leave, to walk away. But even though they may have wanted to, they could not stay. Their impetus to go came from a supernatural nudge. There was a sudden appearance of two men in white robes standing by them saying,

“Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

This reminds me of the two men in dazzling clothes who appeared to the women at the empty tomb and asked them,

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

The women needed to be told that they would not find Jesus in the home of the dead. He was risen. And the disciples now need to be told that they cannot remain looking up, at least not for the time being. They must go forward.

So the disciples return to Jerusalem. They enter the city and go back to the upper room where they were staying. They gather there, along with the other women and Jesus’ family and they wait. They wait for the power of the Holy Spirit. They wait for the day when they will see Jesus return. They wait.

In the tradition in which I grew up, what was emphasized about this account of Jesus’ ascension was the promise of the second coming. In our tradition, we refer to Jesus’ coming again in glory in our worship service. It’s understandable that the second coming is a big deal to a lot of folks, a lot of church traditions, and to many people in my extended family. My dad once told me that every New Year’s Eve, my grandfather would gather the family together and they would pray that in this New Year, Jesus would finally return. But I have wondered for a long time if focusing so completely on the second coming isn’t also missing the point just a little. I wonder if we have not gotten way too caught up in looking up?

Jesus spent 40 days between his resurrection and his ascension preparing the disciples to be witnesses to him and to the kingdom of God. But whether the disciples fully got that, it’s hard to know. That’s why that supernatural nudge was necessary. The two men appear to the disciples just as they appeared to the women. They all needed to be prodded into taking the next step. The disciples needed to be reminded that their work was not focused solely on looking up, but on looking out. When the Holy Spirit comes upon them on Pentecost – the story that we will read and celebrate next week – we learn that their ministry was to go out, to reach out, to set out, move out … into the world, into the midst of the brokenness and the hurting and the chaos. Their ministry, their call was to bring the good news of the gospel to the world, to be Christ’s body, hands, feet, mouth, mind, and heart in a world that so desperately needed it.

The men in white robes appear in that moment, when the disciples are staring up into the heavens, as one commentator put it, mesmerized or paralyzed we aren’t sure, to move the disciples into action, to push them toward their calling.

Why are you looking up? And to their question I add, why aren’t you looking out? I know the men in white don’t say this, but to me it seems implied. Why are you looking up? Why aren’t you looking out?

I struggle with looking up. And I struggle with looking out. I think we need both, but it seems to me that we either spend too much time doing one and not enough time doing the other, and vice versa. Let’s be honest. We need to look up. We need to look up to God in trust, in hope, in expectation. But how often do I forget that? How often do I throw a quick glance upward just to remind God that I’ve got this. I can handle all things on my own. God just needs to get on board with my plans. I’m in control and it’s going to be just fine. And only when everything is not just fine do I realize that I have been looking in, not up. I haven’t been trusting God, I’ve been trusting myself only. I’ve been looking at only what I want to see – in me and in God.

But on the other hand, I wonder if only looking up is another way to privatize faith. It’s just you and me God. My salvation is based only on our relationship. We got that all worked out, just the two of us so no one else needs to be involved. That means I don’t need to look out. I just need to look up and wait for you to come and get me. This is all about me. So I’m just going to look up.

Do you see what I’m getting at? Both of those scenarios focus on me and me alone. Either I’m looking inward, believing that I’m looking out, and trusting only in myself, or I’m looking up and thinking it’s only about me and God. Either way, it’s all about me.

But all about me, or all about you, or all about any one person does not fit with what Jesus taught and preached and lived. Maybe the disciples were mesmerized or paralyzed while looking up but they looked up together. When they returned to Jerusalem, they went back together. They stayed together. They waited together. They prayed and devoted themselves to scripture together. They were in community, the community that Jesus created and nurtured. And when the Holy Spirit does come upon them, it descends on them in community. The power they receive in the Spirit was not limited to them alone, it was shared. It was shared with every person gathered there with them, and it was then shared with the whole world. The disciples spend the rest of their lives looking out, going out, reaching out – to the whole world.

The disciples looked up and they looked out. It seems to me that God requires both. God wants us to look up. Look up, God says, look to me, trust me, believe in me, listen to me, follow me. And look out. Look out at my children made in my image. Look out and see them. Are you caring for them? Are you loving them as I love them? Look out at the world I created. Are you caring for it? Are you loving it the way I love it? Are you looking up but are you also looking out? It seems to me that God requires both. We must look up, look up to God for our hope, for our strength, for our courage. But we must also then look out. We must look out at the world God has created, at the children God has created and loves. We must take the power and strength and courage and hope we receive from looking up and carry that out into the world.

And yes, part of our following, part of our looking and out is waiting. But as one scholar said, our waiting is not passive. Our waiting is active. We wait in prayer together. We wait in fellowship together. We wait in serving together. We wait in loving together. Our waiting is part and parcel of our looking up and our looking out. We wait and we pray. We wait and we hope. We wait and we work. We wait and we remember. We wait and we live in the moment. We wait and hope for the future.

Expecto Patronum. I await a guardian. Jesus promises the disciples that while they wait they are not left alone. They will receive an Advocate, a guardian in the coming of the Holy Spirit. That promise is our promise as well. We are not alone. We are not alone in our waiting. We are not alone in our looking up. We are not alone in our looking out. We are not alone. So we look up in trust and in great expectation. And we look out in hope, in compassion and in love. And we give thanks that God calls us to do both. We give thanks that we are called again and again and again to look up and to look out. Thanks be to God.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia.”

Amen.