Eternal God, creator of time and temperature, people and places, we have sought in the past six weeks to walk with the followers of Christ from the empty tomb to the Mount of Olives; from the resurrection to the ascension. We heard our Savior say, “Do not be afraid, go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me” and we also heard him say, “Do not leave Jerusalem but wait for the gift my Father promised you.” The “waiting” is as important as the “going”. Other than the selection of Matthias to replace Judas, we have no record of anything they did but wait. Ten days of doing nothing but waiting.
Father, this morning we are asking ourselves, “What does it mean to wait?” We are apt to think of it as being passive, standing around impatiently waiting for something to happen. Something we do in grocery lines, or when we go to Disneyland, or even at best waiting for our children or our wives. But when You instruct your followers to wait You are not telling them to be passive, to stand idly by but rather to be patient and trusting and at the same time eagerly looking forward to that which You are about to do. You are not asking us to stand still with our hands in our pockets, helplessly waiting for You to do something, but rather, as the disciples in Jesus day, to be anxiously looking forward to that which You were about to do.
The great mystery of our waiting is that it really is not us but You who are waiting. You waited 24 years before giving Abraham a promised son. You waited 40 years before leading the children of Israel out of the desert. You waited 2,000 years before fulfilling the promise of a Savior to the people of Israel. In today’s lesson You waited ten days before You poured out your Holy Spirit upon those who would follow You. They had to spend ten days waiting before You could release your Holy Spirit upon them. We marvel that it took only ten days. We might have thought it would be ten weeks or ten months before they would be ready for such an event in their lives.
Father God, we see this morning how You say to us, as You said to the disciples long ago, “Wait”. We are not ready for the next chapter in our lives or the life of our church until we have learned to wait. We must learn to wait until we become the people that You want us to be. We must learn to wait until we are ready to show sorrow and repentance for our sins. We must learn to wait until we are ready to acknowledge and admit that the church is not ours but Yours. We must learn to wait until we are ready to submit to Your will. The list goes on and on. Dear Jesus, we need to hear You say to us this morning, “Wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart.”
Help us Lord Jesus, to learn how to truly wait on You. This is our prayer today. Amen.
Posted on
Friday, May 21, 2010
by Pastor Chet Droog