Jesus Began And He's Still Working: Acts 1 Devotional
The disciples watched Jesus disappear into a cloud and stood frozen, staring at the sky. But the cloud wasn't a disappearance. It was an enthronement. Jesus didn't finish—He shifted into a new mode, and handed His disciples a new name: witnesses.
There is a particular kind of stillness that comes after something enormous. You stand at the gate after the plane has pulled back, at the grave after everyone else has started toward their cars, in the doorway of a room that just emptied. Everyone around you begins to move again, but your feet will not cooperate. Something in you keeps watching the space where the person was, as if looking long enough might bring them back, or at least explain what is supposed to happen now.
That posture, still and upward and waiting for more, is exactly where Acts 1 finds the disciples. They have just watched Jesus ascend into a cloud, and they are standing on a hillside doing what any of us would do: staring at the sky. They had a theory about what came next. Instead they got a cloud and silence. The passage does not scold them for standing there. But it does ask them a question, and it offers something better than an explanation.
Take a moment to read Acts 1:1-11. Read it on Bible Gateway if you'd like.