Awaiting the Holy Spirit

Dear Friends,

This is the Sunday between the Ascension and Pentecost. A time of waiting.

Jesus had left them. They would no longer look upon that much loved face or hear that authoritative voice that could be laced with kindness or steel.

Jesus was gone. Taken up.

But this time, they were not desolate as they were when he died. Now, they were primed, ready for…Well, they were not sure what they were ready for. Jesus had a way of surprising them.

Together, they went back to Jerusalem to wait and pray for the promised Spirit. In Acts 1.15, we are told there were 120 gathered for Pentecost. These included Mary, the Mother of Jesus, the Twelve with Matthias in place of Judas Iscariot, and I wonder who else? Perhaps Mary Magdalen and the other Marys, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, Simon of Cyrene and his sons, the soon to be deacons Stephen and Philip. Maybe the son of the widow of Naim, and the little girl whom Jesus cured and the cripple from the pool of Bethsaida and the blind men Jesus cured. It is delicious to wonder who was included and why. They were diverse, many with little savvy and very little discipline as a group. Yet these were among the ones that Jesus called His own, and as they awaited the Spirit, their prayer blended where their lives did not.

What allowed them to not fall apart were two things: Jesus’ prayer for them and His message.

The intimacy, the uncompromising gift that Jesus gave is His prayer for His disciples, is in today’s Gospel. Reread it in John 17 1-11. Read it out loud. Read it to someone else. It confirms that the ones for whom he prays in this passage are loved by Him. Jesus recognizes these disciples belong to His Father. Jesus holds them close.

His message to them of peace, unity and courage was to be spoken and lived by the whole company of believers. It was about the reign of God – already in their midst but not fulfilled. Each of them would not receive the same message in the same way. There are as many nuances to the message as there were people receiving it. When the time came, the Holy Spirit would warm and encourage them to deepen their commitment and move into action. Then they would know what to say and do.

You and I cannot be in the upper room with the other early disciples of Christ for the next week, but we can join with one another all week in praying and waiting, repeating over and over, Come, Holy Spirit!

~Sister Joan Sobala