Waiting Is Not Wasted Time

Trying to write a sermon for Ascension Sunday is difficult ... I mean where do you begin with a story that in some ways feels like a creation to get around that annoying question ... "what actually happened to Jesus body" ... I played with the "do I do the Ascension Deficit Disorder joke? But that didn't feel right. I kept coming back to the idea of waiting for the holy spirit ... and waiting is not something I have the most patience with ... I start waiting and then get bored or distracted ... sometimes both. I know this is an ADHD thing, but I also think it is a common problem in the world today.

I think that waiting is something we have lost the knack of doing, we are so used to instant results, to having everything at our fingertips all the time. We give up on things because we try them and don't get an instant result ... waiting feels like wasted time in which we could have done so many things and yet I wonder if we are being called to wait for God and to see where They are moving. To wait without the pressure to keep the show on the road, or to try something new. And maybe to remember that waiting for God is not wasting time and is not passive. Waiting with hope and with a sense of joy is perhaps one of the most courageous and faithful things we can do.

This sermon was written for a specific church, but the context feels familiar for many of the churches I know.

Luke 24:44-53

Acts 1:1-14

Ascension is, I think, one of the more difficult moments in the Christian story to know what to do with. Christmas and Easter we kind of understand. Pentecost is a little trickier, but its images of wind and flame still give us something vivid to hold on to. Ascension can feel stranger. Jesus rises into heaven. The disciples stand staring after him. Two men in white robes appear and ask, almost pointedly:

“Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?”

What are we meant to make of this moment?

To understand it, it helps to notice where our Gospel reading begins. The passage we heard starts with the words, “Then he said to them…”, which means something has already been happening.

The women have found the tomb empty. Two disciples have met the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus. They have hurried back to Jerusalem to tell the others, and while they are still speaking, Jesus himself stands among them and says:

“Peace be with you.”

Peace is not their first response. They are startled and terrified. They think they are seeing a ghost. So, Jesus shows them his hands and his feet. He invites them to touch him. He asks for food and eats a piece of fish in front of them.

Luke wants us to see that the resurrection is real and embodied. The risen Christ is truly alive. The one who was crucified stands among them. His wounded body has not been discarded. Death has been defeated, but suffering has not simply been brushed aside.

Then Jesus begins to teach them. He opens their minds to understand the Scriptures. He tells them that the Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins must be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

Then he says:

“You are witnesses of these things.”

That is their calling. They are to bear witness to the risen Christ. They are to speak of forgiveness, new life, and the mercy of God made known in Jesus.

Then comes the really difficult instruction:

“Stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

They have been given a calling and a message to proclaim, yet Jesus tells them to wait. Before they go out as witnesses, they must first receive the help he has promised.

Waiting is not something we are always very good at ... I am certainly not. And it is much harder if we have already been waiting for a very long time. Waiting for renewal. Waiting for new energy. Waiting for someone else to step forward and help carry the load. Waiting while the same faithful few have done what they can, and often more than they really had the strength for.

In that situation, “wait” can feel almost impossible. Somewhere underneath it is the fear that

If we do not do something now, what will happen?

If we do not act, will the church simply fade away?

The disciples, in Acts, ask a different question, but one that comes from a similar longing for God to act. They say to Jesus:

“Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”

You can almost feel their excitement. They have followed Jesus for a long time, listened to his teaching, watched him confront those in power, watched his execution, and then heard the astonishing news that he has risen from the dead. Of course they want to know what happens next. Yet somehow, they still seem to imagine that Jesus’ victory will now take the form they had expected: the restoration of Israel, perhaps even the overthrow of Roman rule.

Jesus does not mock them for asking. But neither does He give them what they are asking for .. Instead replying

“It is not for you to know the times or periods that the father has set by his own authority.”

Before going on to speak about the Holy Spirit and about witness:

“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses…”

They ask for clarity about God’s timetable. Jesus gives them a calling for the time in which they now stand.

At the end of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus leads them out as far as Bethany. He lifts his hands and blesses them. While he is blessing them, he is carried up into heaven.

Jesus final visible action in Luke is blessing. He ascends with his hands raised over them. They enter an uncertain future under the blessing of Christ.

And what do they do?

“They worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.”

Their waiting is joyful and worshipful. They know that Christ’s departure has not left them abandoned. We have already heard that promise in John 14: “I will not leave you as orphans.”

So, the disciples return to Jerusalem and gather in the upper room. Luke tells us:

“All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer.”

Their waiting has shape. They return where Jesus told them to return. They stay together. They pray. They live in the promise they have received, even before they have seen its fulfilment.

While they are still in this waiting time before Pentecost, they hold what may be the Church’s first (minuted) administrative meeting. They recognise that Judas’ place among the Twelve must be filled; they pray, seek wisdom, and Matthias is appointed. Even in the book of Acts, waiting on the Spirit does not exempt anyone from dealing with vacancies.

Waiting, in Acts, is not empty time. It includes attention to the life of the community. It includes discernment and preparation for what lies ahead, even though they don’t know what that future is going to be.

The disciples do not begin the outward mission before Pentecost. But they do attend to what needs attending to. They cannot summon the Spirit by effort, but they can make ready to receive what God will give.

This is the kind of waiting these passages invite us into: waiting that stays open to God, and asks what faithfulness looks like here and now, rather than allowing urgency alone to decide what must be done.

So, we may need to ask: what is ours to do? What has become too heavy to carry? What needs prayer rather than panic? What next step is God asking of us, with the people, the gifts, the weariness, and the limits that we have as God’s people in this place?

That may be a difficult discernment.

Sometimes we assume faithfulness means continuing everything exactly as it has always been done. We think that if a role has always existed, someone must fill it. If an activity has always happened, it must continue. If a church has always organised itself in a certain way, then preserving that structure becomes the measure of success.

Jesus places another question before the disciples:

“How will you bear witness to me?”

That question may lead a church to preserve what remains fruitful. It may lead a church to simplify what has become unsustainable. It may mean asking for help. It may mean admitting that some things cannot continue as they are.

Truthfulness before God belongs within faithful waiting.

The disciples are told to wait in Jerusalem. They are to remain in the place where they already are: the city of Jesus’ rejection, crucifixion, resurrection, and coming witness.

They must wait there. We too are called to faithfulness in the reality God sees fully. In the place where we are. With all that is precious. With all that is tiring. With all that has been faithfully carried. With all that cannot simply be solved by asking already-weary people to do more.

Ascension reminds us that the Church belongs to Christ. We are called to participate in God’s mission, rather than being left to invent or sustain one of our own.

There is still work before us: the work of bearing witness to Christ in this place. That witness will ask for obedience, discernment, courage, and trust, but it is sustained by the Spirit of God.

Perhaps that helps us understand what the disciples are waiting for,  and what we may be waiting for too.

They are waiting for the Spirit of God: the Spirit who will give them what they do not yet have, who will steady them, enlarge their vision, and lead them into faithful witness.

At Pentecost that Spirit will come with the force of a rushing wind. But wind does not always announce itself dramatically. Sometimes it is scarcely noticed at first, yet it still moves things. It carries seed. It fills a sail. It brings breath and relief.

Perhaps that is worth remembering. The Spirit’s gentleness is not a sign of weakness. God may come with unmistakable force, but God may also come in ways that help weary people breathe again, see more clearly, and find the next faithful step.

The disciples did not know what lay ahead. They did not know how the mission would unfold, or what waiting in Jerusalem would ask of them. But they did know that Christ had blessed them, and the Spirit had been promised. That was enough for them to return with a joy that did not depend on every problem being solved or every question answered. A joy that grew from knowing the faithfulness of God.

So perhaps the invitation of Ascensiontide is this: remain in the place where God has set us. Pray. Be honest about what can and cannot be carried. Attend to what can faithfully be prepared. And wait for the Spirit with open hearts.