Summary: "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?" Of course they would ask this! Jesus' friends, of course they would ask this question, after all that they had seen and heard and experienced, the good, the bad, yes, the very bad, the darkest of times. Of course, they would ask, "Is this the time?" But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's rewind the tape a bit. After all, though this mountaintop scene appears to be the opening scene of a story - one that we know as the Acts of the Apostles - the fact is that we are entering a saga already in progress. Acts is, a sequel, a really good sequel. Like The Godfather, Part II or The Empire Strikes Back, not like Jaws 2 or (worse) Jaws 3-D! In the earlier installment, the Gospel of Luke, we encountered one plot twist after another, as the protagonist subverts and overturns the expectations of everyone around him - including his friends. He was, those friends believed, Israel's promised Messiah. People were going to love him. People were going to love them. It was going to be smooth sailing ahead for all of them. Yet, when Jesus preaches in the synagogue to a hometown audience, his message is provocatively about how God had in times past shown favor to outsiders. The audience is ready to turn on him. when a centurion, an officer in the despised army of occupation, asks for help, Jesus offers it without hesitation, and his opponents notice and begin to plot. when a woman with a notorious reputation reaches out to him, he welcomes her, blesses her, absolves her, and his friends shake their heads. and, when it finally looks like everything is going right and his friends enter Jerusalem with him in great triumph, Jesus proceeds to say and do things that, quite simply, provide his enemies with even more ammunition to use against him. Suddenly, it all spirals out of control. These friends panic as the one in whom they had placed their hopes suffers under Pontius Pilate, is crucified, dies, and is buried. And they, in turn, descend into the hell of despair.
