First Presbyterian Church  
  106 North Bench Street, Galena, IL  61036   Phone:  (815) 777-0229 (voice & fax)

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While the fuse burns

May 4, 2008
Acts 1:6-14

When I was in seventh grade, I remember a class in which one of my fellow students did a book report on Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Now, back in those days before Jeff Foxworthy's game show appeared to demonstrate just how much information we expect our fifth graders to know, I would have assumed that either of the Theories of Relativity would have been well beyond what a seventh grader could readily grasp.

After all, the press at the time was regularly assuring us that Einstein was the smartest human alive and the Theory of Relativity was the insight that made Einstein's reputation in the first place. Sure, we had all heard the equation E=MC2, although I suspect a lot of us didn't really know what that meant, let alone what the implications were of his perceptive linkage of matter with energy.

But there it was. The Theory of Relativity was being explained in all its glory - well, maybe I should say some of its glory - to a seventh grade class. And we all understood it. Now that should have been credited to the skill of the student explaining the concepts, but we were 7th graders after all - that was the lowest rung of junior highers, which felt like the lowest rung of the entire education system since we were constantly put down by others while our own bodies betrayed us with acne and squeaky voices and other embarrassing things.

We thought that, clearly, if 7th graders could understand the key elements of a revolutionary theory by the greatest genius of our time, then something must be wrong. But who couldn't understand at least the idea that time could be relative?

Every kid knows that each of the first 24 days of December lasts 48 hours, while summer vacation days are only 10 hours long. Well, that is, unless you're bored. Then the minutes slowly melt off the clock, pooling up below until they flood up into the clockworks and all but stop the movements of the hands altogether. You see, it's all relative.

Among the longest moments of all are those times when people are simply waiting for something to happen. It may be nerves before the start of a wedding or the anxious pacing of the father-to-be while his wife is in labor. It may be a child who is told to wait until his or her father gets home, which they know bodes no good or it may be the end of another school year that tantalizes and taunts both students and teachers, like a mirage that always seems to remain just beyond the next turn of the calendar.

The disciples were beginning a similar moment of extended waiting in our Church History Lesson today. They had been experiencing an amazing roller coaster of emotions in the weeks leading up to this story. Jesus had told them quite plainly that he was going to Jerusalem to die, but some of them were in such denial that they imagined that he was going to lead them in a rebellion against Rome.

But, just as he had warned them, he was arrested and executed, while all but one of them skulked away into the shadows to avoid becoming the next victim. Then suddenly and unexpectedly, Jesus appeared alive to them once more and offered forgiveness for their desertion of him. In an instant, he turned their despair to joy.

For the next forty days, he would appear to them now and again to encourage them and to teach them. Then comes today's lesson. He leads the disciples out of the city to the Mount of Olives, which is a hill just across a small valley from the Temple Mount.

The disciples knew something momentous was about to happen, but their first question shows that they still don't quite get it, since they obviously haven't given up on the idea of an armed rebellion. They ask, "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?"

But Jesus doesn't really answer that question. He simply tells them to wait until they are empowered by the Holy Spirit and then go out and be his witnesses "to the ends of the earth." Then he is raised up and out of their sight, while they stand slack-jawed, staring at the clouds into which he vanished. I suspect any of us would have looked just as silly, standing there looking up in amazement.

That's when two angels appear. In any normal circumstance their appearance would have been stunning and perhaps even fear inducing. But in this context, angel messengers are just a matter of course. The disciples don't even blink an eye when they see the angels.

So what do they say? Essentially, the angels gave the disciples a message that could have come straight from the U.S. Army - that is, they say in essence, "Hurry up and wait!" In other words, quit standing around staring into heaven. Get back to Jerusalem and do what Jesus told you to do - wait for the Holy Spirit. So the disciples do just that. But their version of waiting isn't a passive thing at all. Instead, they wait by being actively engaged in gathering together for prayer.

Many modern Christians have somehow become convinced that praying is a very passive thing - as if it is the very last possible thing you do when there are no other alternatives left to try. It's as if we think we have to give everything our very best shot and only when things prove to be too difficult for us, then and only then will we turn them over to God. Clearly that is not what this passage is trying to teach us.

Prayer is far from a passive thing. Instead, it is an active attempt to open your heart to God so that God can align your heart with his will. Abraham Lincoln understood that concept well. Once when he heard someone commenting that God must surely be on the side of the North in the Civil War, Lincoln said, "I don't pray that God is on our side. I pray that we are on God's side."

Nobel Prize winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn said a similar thing in his book, A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, a novel in which the main character is forced to endure all the horrors of a Soviet prison camp. One day a fellow prisoner notices Ivan praying with his eyes closed, so he says with ridicule, "Prayers won't help you get out of here any faster." Opening his eyes, Ivan answers, "I do not pray to get out of prison but to do the will of God."

That is exactly how the disciples choose to spend their time as they waited for the mysterious gift of the Holy Spirit. They gathered together to support one another and to pray that they could put aside their own ideas of what Jesus' life was about and instead begin to understand his life through God's eyes. They also prayed that God would bring them into alignment with God's plans for them. If was as if they had tilled and fertilized their hearts to prepare them for the planting of the Holy Spirit that would come on Pentecost.

It seems to me that we, as a congregation, have been lingering in a similar time of waiting. We went through a year or more of frenzied activities getting ready for our 175th anniversary and then, when it was all over, it was as if we took an almost audible sigh of relief and we all relaxed for a while. It was an unplanned, but important period of sabbath, of waiting.

But now we are on the verge of leaving that period behind as we begin to implement the various components of our newly-approved Long Range Plan. Because it is a Long Range Plan, it will be put into effect over the course of some undefined period of time.

And, due to that lack of definition, we have already struggled with our own brand of Goldilocks moments - that is, trying to balance the interests of those who think we are moving too quickly with those who think we are moving too slowly. The struggle is to find that elusive pace which is just right.

As we wait - as we begin this process - shouldn't we follow the wisdom of the first disciples and spend our time in prayer, seeking God's guidance? Surely we can't find a middle ground that is just right unless it is given to us by God. And discovering that elusive middle ground is only possible through the discernment of prayer.

Where will we be as a congregation five years from now or ten years from now? For that matter, where will we be at the end of this year? Only God knows the answer to that for certain. We can chose to passively sit back and wait to see what will happen to us or we can roll up our sleeves and determine what will happen by the sheer force of our own effort.

But the disciples would teach us that the best way to make use of our time of waiting is to gather in prayer to discern God's will and thus be empowered so that when we act, we can have more certainty that what we do will be in keeping with God's will. This isn't a passive thing, but a joyful time of entering God's presence with purpose and hope and trust.

The Rev. Richard Fairchild once wrote, "[...] in the times between - we need to trust and have confidence that what has been promised to us by God will come to pass - whether that promise is of a spiritual gift - or a promise of comfort and of a new life - or a promise to bless us and use us in some particular way in his service.

"We need the confidence - not because our confidence will change the outcome - what God promises to us will come to pass. No - we need this confidence because when we have it - we open ourselves up to the peace of God and the other blessings that God has for us - right now - now in the time between all those other promises and the time of their fulfillment. [...] In the times between, the times of waiting, trust in the Lord to come through [...] remember what he has done for you in the past - and wait for the next act - the next promise to come true with a firm hope."

This congregation is an amazing community of faith and I firmly believe that we are on the verge of something remarkable. Exactly what that will turn out to be, I have no idea, but I can sense good things are coming for us. As we wait, let us pull together and let us be continually in prayer for the Lord's guidance. There is no better way to faithfully fill the interval before God's will is revealed to us. Everything else is just settling for something that is just relatively God's will. Amen.

By Rev. Jim McCrea

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