In the Meantime...

So, Jesus is now resurrected and has ascended into heaven. And he hasn't returned yet. So... what do we do in the meantime? That same question faced the first disciples. How did they answer it? How do we?

“Will wonders never cease?” That must have been what the disciples thought as they stood looking up at Jesus ascending into heaven. Not that long ago, that same Jesus had been nailed to a cross and executed as a criminal. But then – wonder of wonders – he had been raised from the dead, and had appeared to them more than once! Now, forty days after his miraculous resurrection, they were watching him return to the heaven from whence he had come. Will wonders never cease, indeed! What a mountain-top experience that was! If the disciples needed any further proof that Jesus was indeed the Messiah, they had that proof as they watched him being lifted up into the clouds.

But now, Jesus was gone; and the disciples had to come down off that mountain. And what were they going to do without Jesus? The question hung unspoken in their midst like the proverbial elephant in the room. The disciples had become a group of people living “in the meantime.” Oh, Jesus had told them what was going to happen. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes to you; and you will be my witnesses… to the ends of the earth.” And the two men in white robes had promised that Jesus would one day return again. But those were just hints of the future, like the teasers that we see at the end of TV programs to make sure that we tune in again next week. As yet, the disciples had no power to be witnesses; and Jesus’ return was far in the future. In the meantime, what were they supposed to do?

It’s a good question; and one that we ask ourselves, too. We’re not so very different from that group of disciples, not really. We’re also an “in the meantime” community. Oh, we know about the Holy Spirit that Jesus promised to the disciples. We know that it rained down on them at Pentecost like tongues of fire. In fact, we’ll celebrate that occasion next week in worship. But we also know that no one can predict the action of the Holy Spirit. That Spirit comes and goes as it will. We can’t shut the Spirit in a box and dig it out when we are discouraged and need a shot in the arm. Sometimes we can’t feel the Spirit at all. And we don’t know when Jesus is coming back, either. He might come back next Tuesday! But then again, he might not come back for quite a while yet. We are also living “in the meantime” as we wait for the power of the Spirit to fill us, and anticipate Jesus’ ultimate return. The question that the disciples faced is our question, too: “What are we supposed to do now?”

It’s no secret that different Christians answer that question different ways. Some focus on the promise of Jesus’ return. In fact, they’re obsessed with it. They spend their time not only waiting for it, but trying to figure out when it will happen! You know about those folks. The most recent was Harold Camping, who predicted that Jesus would return on May 21, 2011. When Jesus didn’t appear on that day, he revised the date to October 21. Jesus didn’t come back on October 21 any more than he did on May 21. Camping died at the end of last year without ever having successfully predicted Jesus’ return. Maybe that’s because in Acts, Jesus clearly says, “It is not for you to know the times or dates that the Father has set by his own authority.” In other words, “When I’m coming back is none of your business!” It seems to me that trying to figure out the date of Jesus’ Second Coming isn’t the best way to spend our time while we wait for it.

Other Christians are, quite frankly, afraid of life “in the meantime;” and so, they put their heads in the sand and pretend that everything will be just fine if they just keep doing what they’ve always done. But “in the meantime” is a place that keeps changing. In this post-modern world, nothing stays the same for very long. In fact, the only thing that’s certain is that next year, next month, or even next week will be very different than this one is now! Once upon a time, big, bulky telephones were attached to our kitchen walls. Today, we carry cell phones with us that are no bigger than a pack of playing cards. We just got used to email, and now we have to learn text messaging. It won’t be too long before the glasses that we wear to correct our vision will contain tiny screens that will respond to our eye movements and surf the internet! Everything today is up for grabs. No wonder that some people are threatened by it!

But there’s a third option for us – to live in expectation of the Holy Spirit to fill us, to guide us, and to empower us. After all, Jesus told us that we are to be his witnesses “to the ends of the earth.” We can’t stick our heads in the sand if we’re going to do that! No, Jesus calls us to turn away from ourselves and to turn towards others as we visit the sick, feed the hungry, house the homeless, clothe the naked, and pray constantly. That’s how we witness to our savior who taught us to love others in the same way that he first loved us. Sure, the world is insecure! It always has been and it always will be! It’s full of violence and oppression, brokenness and suffering, illness and death. But we testify through our witness to the risen Christ that all these things don’t get the last word. The God of healing, of grace, and of peace is the one who gets the last word!

But – I want to offer a word of warning. We can’t fix the world’s brokenness through our efforts alone. All our good deeds and programs and policies can be very useful things; but they only go so far. As we witness to the risen Christ through our actions, we need to do one more thing. We need to pray for God’s help! Did you take notice of the last verse of the text from Acts that we heard this morning? It said that after the disciples had watched Jesus ascend into heaven, they returned to Jerusalem and got together to pray. Today, we are the disciples that do the very same thing. As we wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit into our lives and into our congregations, we pray. We pray for the power of the Spirit that enables us to be effective witnesses to Jesus Christ. We pray for the guidance of the Spirit that helps us to make wise decisions as to how and where to witness. We pray for the enthusiasm of the Spirit that allows our witness to be joyful and passionate. We pray for others, absolutely; but we also pray for ourselves and for our congregation.

So, fellow Christians who are living “in the meantime,” let me ask a few questions before I conclude my sermon. Do we really expect the Holy Spirit to come into our midst and fill us with power? Of course, we’re waiting on that; but do we expect it? And do we really want that kind of power, deep down in our hearts? After all, being filled with the Spirit’s power means that we have to get up out of the pews and do something! Finally, if we are blessed by the power of the Spirit, are we willing to allow that Spirit to lead us – or are we going to insist on doing things our own way? Those are questions that the 21^st century church has to answer as it seeks to find its place in our postmodern world. And as we await the Day of Pentecost, those aren’t bad questions for us to ponder, either. We are moving into the future that God holds in his hand, a place where all of us are called to witness to the world in Jesus’ name. May we be faithful to that task; and when Jesus comes again in glory, may he find that we have been courageous disciples as we lived “in the meantime.”