Waiting for God
O God, the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son
Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven:
Do not leave us comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to
strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Savior
Christ has gone before; who lives and reigns with you and
the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven:
Do not leave us comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to
strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Savior
Christ has gone before; who lives and reigns with you and
the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.
According to Acts, Jesus left last Thursday, was taken away into heaven. And so this time in the church calendar we live with the disciples into that ten days between the Ascension and Pentecost. It must have been grievous for them, and lonely as they wondered how the promise of the Holy Spirit would be kept, and when. It might have turned out entirely different from what Luke describes at Acts chapter 2. Instead of Jerusalem it could have been back home in Capernaum, perhaps by the Sea of Galilee. Or instead of the following week, the Church might have been still waiting for the Holy Spirit just as we await the Second Coming. After all, as Abraham and Sarah would testify, God seems never in a hurry to keep a promise: God called them out of Haran when Abraham was seventy-five (Genesis 12:3), promising children, always promising children, promising children across their entire adventure of Genesis until God’s promise became a laughing matter to Abraham and Sarah. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born (Genesis 21:5). For us, a quarter century is a very long time to wait.
Why do we wait so long for God to respond to our hopes and prayers, if indeed God’s answer ever seems to come? My mother prays almost constantly, “Help, me Father.” As I sat beside her the other day she prayed, “Father, help me.” Then either to herself or to me she said, “He isn’t listening.” What’s going on? Perhaps the answer is the difference between us and God, between our time which is a human concept, and God’s time which is no time at all but eternity, a concept beyond time. It isn’t that God forgets us. It’s as Psalm 90 says, “How long, O Lord, how long?” But the psalmist knows the answer, doesn’t he. “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. ... For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night.”
So, what do we do? We wait, don’t we. We wait. Borrowing from Samuel Beckett, we are Waiting for God.
In my case, it’s +Time, time I neither expected nor deserved; waiting with thanksgiving. Waiting joyfully.
Sabbath: Shalom. Peace. God's Peace.
TW+