Ten Day Teachable Moment

Jesu Juva

Acts 1:12-26                                                       

May 12, 2024

Easter 7B                           

 Dear saints of our Savior,

        Wait!  Stay!  Don’t go anywhere!  That . . . was the Word of the Lord.  That’s what Jesus told His followers right before He disappeared from their sight.  Wait—wait for the promise of the Father.  Of course, we know that their waiting would end on the Day of Pentecost with the coming of the Holy Spirit.  We know that their waiting was just the build-up to something big and glorious.  But the Apostles knew none of that.  Jesus had just up and vanished; and now all they could do was wait.

        Waiting must have been the last thing they wanted to do.  They must have been like stags at the starting gate—bucking and brimming with the urge to get out there and start ringing door bells to tell the whole world that Christ is risen, never to die again—building the church, planning for growth, serving their neighbors in love—hashing out a strategic plan to win the world for Christ—leveraging everything they had learned from Jesus to be His witnesses to the very ends of the earth!  But, no.  Jesus said:  Wait. 

        The artist who painted the picture on this morning’s bulletin cover certainly had an opinion about how well the disciples waited.  The focal point of the painting is, of course, Jesus—the risen, ascending, living Lord of all.  He was crucified, died and was buried.  But on the third day He rose again.  Alleluia!  But as Jesus ascends in glory, His disciples descend into chaos.  Look at the believers at the bottom of the painting.  There you see confusion and disagreement—each person pointing in a different direction, some looking up, some looking down—nobody seeing eye-to-eye.  It looks like a recipe for disaster—a far cry from the oneness and unity Jesus prayed for in today’s Holy Gospel.

        But in my humble opinion, the artist gets it wrong.  For today’s reading from Acts chapter one tells a much different story.  Not a tale of confusion and discord, but a ten-day teachable moment.  The apostles did surprisingly well with their waiting.  This post-Ascension pause turned into a powerful and positive moment for the whole Christian church on earth.

        The ten days between the Ascension of Jesus and the Day of Pentecost are what we call a “teachable moment.”  There the church in its infancy shows us the way of maturity—the way of faith.  What do you do when the Lord says, “Wait?”  What do you do when the Lord says, Be still and know that I am God?  Or as we sang from Psalm 27 this morning, “Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord.”  Because let’s face it, a big part of the Christian life is waiting—waiting for the Lord—waiting for deliverance, waiting for healing, waiting for help, waiting for all the Lord’s promises to be fulfilled.

        Most of us hate to wait.  Waiting is what we do worst.  You don’t need me to provide examples of this, do you?  Consider your own life in just the past week.  How well did you wait?  Mmm hmm.  That’s what I thought.

        But waiting for the Lord is different.  Waiting on the Lord is always a teachable moment.  Waiting on the Lord doesn’t meaning doing nothing.  Nobody can read Acts chapter one and say that the disciples did nothing.  Instead, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James—they got busy while they waited on the Lord.  They found wonderful ways to wait for the Lord in faith. 

        So what did they do as they waited?  All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer.  Don’t gloss over that fact.  Jesus told them to wait.  But their waiting didn’t preclude prayer.  Waiting is prime time for prayer. And Luke doesn’t merely write that they prayed.  (That would have been fine.)  But Luke says that they were devoting themselves to prayer.  This means that they continued faithfully in prayer.  They remained constant in prayer.  They were praying with all their hearts.  They carried on (and on and on) in prayer.  This was much more than “Come, Lord Jesus” before lunch.

        Let these first believers teach you how to wait for the Lord in prayer.  This teachable moment teaches us that we should devote ourselves to prayer—to a life of prayer that is regular and disciplined and ongoing—not just on Sundays, not just at mealtime, but especially at times you have set apart specifically to pray.  Prayer—when done properly—is work.  It requires intentional, systematic effort, purposeful planning.  Pray with a plan.  Pray for others as you would have them pray for you.  And if you’d like help devoting yourself to prayer, just ask.  As the disciples waited, they devoted themselves completely to prayer.

        There’s more to learn from this teachable moment.  How exactly did they wait on Lord so well?  Well, you might have missed it, but the place where the believers gathered together is described by St. Luke as “the upper room.”  Yes, probably that upper room.  They made a point to gather together in that same sacred space where, just weeks before, they had gathered with Jesus on the night when He was betrayed.   On that night, in that same upper room, Jesus had prayed for them, that they would all be one.  On that night, in that same upper room, Jesus had washed their feet, showing them how to serve and love one another.  On that night, in that same upper room, Jesus had given them His very body and blood to eat and drink for the forgiveness of sins.  It was to that same upper room that the believers retreated after Jesus ascended.  There they waited.  There they prayed for one another, served one another, and remembered the words of Jesus. 

        It’s the same reason we gather right here, in this sacred space, week after week, time and time again.  This room is our upper room.  Here we wait.  Here we gather to pray to Jesus, in the glad confidence that He is still praying and interceding for us.  Here Jesus still washes His disciples, in the waters of Holy Baptism.  Here Jesus is the host, serving us with His precious body and blood that He might lead us onward in faith toward Him and in fervent love toward one another.  This is the place where unity is preserved, where forgiveness of sins is received and offered.  This place is full of “teachable moments.”  This is the place where we wait on the Lord—again and again and again.

        Waiting on the Lord doesn’t mean doing nothing.  During that ten-day teachable moment the disciples came together in the upper room to devote themselves to prayer.  And, they leaned into the Scriptures.  They dug down deep into the Word of God.  And what they discovered was strength and resilience.  In the Word, God provided a path of healing for the disciples as they came to terms with Judas Iscariot’s betrayal of Jesus, and his death by his own hand.  Through His Word the Lord delivered them from that trauma and put them on a path of faith and hope.

        From the Scriptures the Lord led them to see that what they needed to do was have a call meeting.  They learned that the Lord needed to choose a new apostle to take the place of Judas.  They gathered together and prayed:  Lord, show us the one . . . you have chosen.  Then they cast lots.  And the Lord chose Matthias to be the new Number 12.  And following this same pattern, congregations down through the centuries have scoured the Scriptures and prayed for the Lord to provide pastors for His church. 

        Beloved in the Lord, let this ten-day teachable moment be your teachable moment too.  When all you can do is wait on the Lord—when the path ahead is unclear and uncertain—or when you are tempted to take matters into your own hands—do what those first disciples did.  Gather in this upper room—the sacred place where Jesus cleanses you of your sin, feeds you with His Word, and serves you with the bread that is His body and the wine that is His blood.  Gather . . . and devote yourself to prayer—regular, ongoing, disciplined prayer.  Gather . . . Pray . . . and dig down deep into the Word.  Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the sacred Scriptures.  For there we encounter Jesus, our Savior.  He died for our sins and was raised again for our justification.  He has ascended to the Father’s right hand so that His power might be fully employed to lead you onward in a life of faith and good works—and eventually to your own glorious resurrection.  So be strong and take courage; wait for the Lord.

        In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.