Acts 1:11

[darinhouston]

Acts 1:10 As 24 they were still staring into the sky while he was going, suddenly 25 two men in white clothing stood near them 1:11 and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand here 26 looking up into the sky? This same Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven 27 will come back in the same way you saw him go into heaven.”

I never really noticed before, but their statement seems weird to me now. So, they're looking up in the sky after Christ's ascension, and the men come and ask them why they're looking up which would presumably follow with "it'll be a long time coming, you might as well stop looking" or "that's not how he'll be coming back," but what they actually say is "he'll come back that way" which seems to be now to be a strange comment. With that comment, t seems like they would have said "it's good that you look up in the sky."

Any thoughts?

[TK]

Good question!

The Message says:

As they watched, he was taken up and disappeared in a cloud. They stood there, staring into the empty sky. Suddenly two men appeared—in white robes! They said, "You Galileans!—why do you just stand here looking up at an empty sky? This very Jesus who was taken up from among you to heaven will come as certainly—and mysteriously—as he left."

I know its just a paraphrase, but I believe it catches the gist. I think the angels were essentially saying "It's time to move on."

TK

[Suzana]

I think TK is right about the gist of it.

There's an excellent sermon I came across when looking up this verse reference in the Blue Letter Bible, in the commentaries. I've only had time to read half of it so far, & don't have time even for a summary (work calling), but it's definitely worth a read:

Charles Spurgeon,The Ascension and the Second Advent Practically Considered

[darinhouston]

Thanks for posting that sermon -- it is an excellent sermon, though it really presumes the traditional view and expands and illuminates the value of that view. There wasn't much in the way of exegeting to show that this was the intended message from the messengers. It would have been SO easy for them to say, don't waste time gazing up when there's work to do and that we should be prepared for His return in like manner. It just seems an awkward way to get that point across if that's the point (and it's certainly a good point for us to take whether or not that was the intended message at that time). But, beyond taking that lesson to heart for what it's worth, I'm rarely satisfied with a merely "reasonable" interpretation of a difficult passage just because it's pragmatic and fits a given paradigm. Maybe like so many other difficult passages, there's a cultural issue that I'm missing which would have made the statement plain to first century Christians, but it still leaves me scratching my head a bit.

[steve]

It seems to me that this kind of rhetorical question may have been a fairly common way of saying, "There's work to be done, get off your duff!" So it seems, at least, in some other passages, like:

"Why are we sitting here until we die?" (2 Kings 7:3)

" Why do you stand here all the day idle?" (Matt. 20:6)

Such expressions are not really unusual in our time, either.

The reference to the second coming (without any indication of the interval prior to its occurrence) would apparently be a way of saying, "There will be a time again for you to be looking up into the sky—but that time is not now."

[RickC]

I've found this interesting w/r/t Darin's text:

231. Rabbi Alexandri said Joshua ben Levi juxtaposed (this) text:
--"And see, with the clouds of heaven
came one like a son of Man [bar einish]" (Dan 7:13)
and this text:
--"(See, your king comes to you...)
humble and riding on an ass" (Zech 9:9)
"with the clouds of heaven": (if) they are worthy;
"humble and riding on an ass": (if) they are not worthy.
--- Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 98a

URL: http://virtualreligion.net/iho/messiah.html

Note:
---Jesus came riding an ass (donkey) one week before his crucifixion (Palm Sunday).
---He will come on the clouds when He returns for His (Worthy) Bride, the Church, God's Israel.

Comments:
R. Alexandri and Joshua ben levi lived in the 3rd century.
One would wonder if these conceptions of the Messiah's coming go back to the 1st century?
My guess: Quite possibly.