The Waiting Game

One of the joys of being a member of a traditional religious order is our structure of offices and our daily Mass. Because we pray together in our chapel five times a day, we hear familiar words year after year, and the collect for today is a very old friend. It contains a phrase, a plea, “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…”

This collect intreats God , “do not leave us comfortless”, or as the 1928 prayer book said, “do not leave us orphaned”, but, give us strength and exalt us to heaven. The petitions are from a people fervently desiring the gifts of God. People like the disciples as they waited for the first coming of the Holy Spirit, pondering what this gift would mean, how their lives would change.

This is a Sunday of waiting; of expectation, which is why this Sunday used to be called Expectation Sunday. This is a time of remembering, of taking stock, and anticipating.

The followers of Jesus have been through the trauma of holy week, and the joy of the resurrection. Then they see Jesus again, in the flesh, eating, teaching and finally ascending in glory to the right hand of the father. But his ascension is bittersweet; Jesus has been exalted, but he has left his disciples again, this time for good.

Jesus is not going to remain with them in body, but he promises that a spirit will be sent from God to comfort them in their loss. From then on they will remember him, and talk of him, and pray to him, in spirit instead of flesh. From then on, no one else will meet the Christ as man.

These eyewitnesses, these disciples, are the last link to the earthly Jesus. What must they have thought as they waited for the coming of the Spirit, something they could not easily comprehend? What were they expecting?

A great change would come when the people spreading the good news had no longer had contact with the earthly Lord, but knew him through the experiences of those who did. The spreading of the church will depend upon faithful witnesses not of the earthly Jesus, but of the powerful spirit which shows his presence even today.

In a sermon, St. Augustine observes that the early followers of Jesus had to have faith in the unseen after having the physical Jesus in their presence, while we who have not seen his human form have to have faith in the physical having experienced only the unseen. Both ways are incomplete, but it is God’s plan to unite these at the last day, when we will be in the presence of the risen Christ.

Jesus has given us the truth, the word, and now the spirit will show us what to do with that word. This spirit will go with us as we are sent out into the world, Jesus explains, and a great church, a company of believers, will rise from the works of the comforter, the advocate, the guide.

While the disciples wait for the coming day of Pentecost, they are together, in company with each other, in community and they pray.  While they wait, they also attended to the business at hand; they elect another to take the place of Judas. They understand that they are called not just to remember, but to prepare for this mission, this sending out.

What these followers of Jesus don’t yet know is how the radical spirit that will arrive in a short week will change their lives and the course of the church forever. How the best laid plans of humans cannot compete with the power of the Holy Spirit.

We also try to discern God’s will and live the good news in our world today.  We read accounts of the life and works of disciples, saints, and other holy people of God to gain insight into the movement of the spirit in their lives. We too are waiting and expecting something we can not quite comprehend.

How did we find our way here, to this church and community? What inspires us each day to new ideas and works? What keeps our faith alive and our hope secure?

As we wait daily for the revelation of God, we also do so together, as a church, as Christians and as a worshiping community. We come together to pray together, to listen for the quiet voice of God.  The Holy Spirit draws us into a community of believers and refreshes us with new ideas and mission possibilities as it also of whispers God’s love in the quiet of the night.  

Each year, as we approach the feast of Pentecost, we do well to remember how important this gift is to us, and to take the time to live in the expectation of the unknown and unexpected.

As we wait for the day of Pentecost, as we marvel at the gift of love shown by Jesus, we give thanks for each other and for the times of expectation, waiting for the gifts of God. Because this Sunday of expectation is not about getting what you expect, it is about getting what God wants to give.

We have become the earthly body of Christ; the body used by God and sent out by the Holy Spirit. Because even though we struggle, as did St. Augustine, to understand the mystery of our Triune God we can join him in believing that “Nevertheless, Christ is absent from no one; he is wholly present in all of us…”