This coming Sunday we celebrate the Solemnity of the Ascension. The first reading for Sunday is taken from the first chapter of Acts of the Apostles. The gospel reading is taken from Luke 24. Previously we considered the Acts of the Apostles as a whole, Today we take a high-level view of the unity of the two works of scripture.

Luke begins Acts as he begins his Gospel, with a foreword to his patron Theophilus, reminding him that the “first book” covered the time until Jesus was taken up by God to heaven. The Gospel ends with a brief reference to this incident (Luke 24:51), which was preceded by important teaching given by Jesus to his disciples. So important was this teaching that we have three accounts of it. Luke records it in the Gospel (Luke 24, especially vv. 44–49); he then summarizes it briefly in this introductory part of Acts, and then he covers certain aspects of it once again in the story of the ascension which is the first incident in the main narrative in Acts (1:6–11). The repetition is partly for emphasis, and at the same time it indicates that the period from Easter Sunday to the Ascension is both the conclusion of the earthly ministry of Jesus and the beginning of the work of the church. This period had two important characteristics. It provided evidence that Jesus was alive (1:3), having risen from the dead, and it was the time when Jesus gave his mission orders to the apostles (1:4f.; cf. 1:7f.).