Active Waiting

Active Waiting

Acts 1:4, 12-14

            This time of year patience is in short supply.  This is supposed to be the season of patience—as well as of love and joy, but it often doesn’t turn out that way.  We hear about fights breaking out in stores between shoppers trying to purchase the same item—an item they want to give to someone they love.  If this sounds confusing, that’s humanity for you.

            Waiting is especially difficult for children.  Their sense of time is more immediate than that of adults (except, of course, when we want them to get ready to go someplace they don’t want to go), so they find it difficult to accept long wait times.

            Waiting must have been difficult for Christ’s disciples.  From the moment he began revealing the kingdom of God to them they had great expectations.  When they contemplated their future in the kingdom—not as peasants under the double oppression of Roman and Jewish authorities, but as Jesus’ hand-picked cabinet—they must have been as impatient as any child between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

            We read the beginning of Acts against the background of the crucifixion and resurrection.  They are past events.  Jesus has been with his followers a period of time since the resurrection, and is about to leave them—although they don’t know that yet. 

            Jesus takes them to the Mount of Olives, significant because most Jewish apocalyptic prophecies name this place as the beginning of the action.  The disciples must have been even more filled with anticipation than they were on Palm Sunday, just a few short weeks ago.  Surely this was the time and place the angel armies would descend and the kingdom—bringing all their perks and privileges—would begin. 

            But it wasn’t.  Jesus gave them a few final words, including an admonishment that they were not to know the time when the kingdom would be fully realized, then told them to return to Jerusalem to wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Not knowing what the Holy Spirit was, they must have been like kids eyeing that big package under the tree—the one way in the back—wondering what might be in it, and who it was for.  But like kids in December they had to wait for the right time to find out what the gift was.  

During the wait they could have sat around, looking at each other, wondering aloud and to themselves what they were waiting for, but they didn’t.  Jesus’ message had gotten through to them enough so they knew they had to do something, and that something was pray.  Luke tells us that they “with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer” as they waited—for who knew what!  It was a gift, and if it came from Jesus then it was an important gift—a big gift.  So they waited, and prayed, and waited, and prayed.

August Rodin, the sculptor, said, “Patience is also a form of action.”  He knew that creating a work of art couldn’t be rushed.  It needed time to evolve, time for the creative process to work.  During the wait, things were happening, ideas were developing.  Under the surface the creative juices were flowing.  The ground was being prepared for the next creative step, but the action was taking place out of sight.

Patience is a form of action.  When the time was right, the Holy Spirit came—and the disciples were prepared, because they had been praying.  In due time Christmas morning will come, and what’s in that big box will be sweeter for the waiting.

It’s a lesson we all must learn.  Wait patiently, but wait actively.  In due time God will come, and our joy will be complete.