Waiting for the Spirit - Sermon for the 7th Sunday of Easter, Exaudi

Seventh Sunday of Easter – Exaudi
May 12^th, A+D 2024
Waiting for the Spirit
Our Redeemer and Our Savior's 
Lutheran Churches
Custer and Hill City, SD

Audio of the sermon available HERE.

   What must the waiting have been like, those ten days between the Ascension of Jesus
and the coming of the Holy Spirit?  Jesus’ final instructions to the Eleven Disciples before He was received into the cloud were to wait, to wait in Jerusalem until they received power from on high, the coming of the Comforter, the Encourager, the Holy Spirit.  Even though Jesus had now declared the Eleven to be Apostles, sent ones, charged to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth, their first task is not to go, but to wait.  How long?  Jesus doesn’t say.  Not many days from now, He promised, but what does “not many” mean?  I can imagine it was excruciating, the waiting.  Will it be today?  Tomorrow?  And what will our Baptism by the Holy Spirit be like, exactly? 

   The 7^th Sunday of Easter, between the Ascension of Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, is a bit of a lost Sunday.  Very often, since the Ascension falls on Thursday, churches choose to celebrate it today.  And even if we use the appointed readings, as we have, the focus is not on today, but on next Sunday, Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit.  I imagine the earliest Christians may have felt the same way.  Waiting…

   Waiting.  What are you waiting for?  Looking around the congregation, I know some of you are waiting for medical test results, or medical procedures, even surgeries.  Many young people can’t wait to grow up and be independent of your parents.  Maybe you’re waiting for your financial situation to improve, so you can finally make that big change.  Or maybe you’re waiting for someone, something, to turn around the direction of things in our beloved country.  Waiting for things over which we have no control is the worst.  Will my child get over whatever has upset them, and come back to the family?  Back to the church?  Will my loved one come back from their depression, or their anger, or whatever gets between us now? 

   Time is a gift from God, given us to receive His other gifts and use them to His glory, for the benefit of others, and for ourselves.  In theory, with all the technical marvels, material bounty and ease of living we enjoy, we should have more time than ever to read or listen to God’s Word, to pray, and to gather together for teaching, worship, fellowship and the mutual consolation of the brethren.  But most of us struggle to find time for more than the minimum.   

   We should be very relaxed about the time we have and the tasks we need to complete.  But I think we all know this isn’t true for most of us.  Most of us struggle with time.  If you have reached the zone of not feeling rushed and overscheduled, and yet you also you find lots of rewarding, valuable things with which to fill your time, well, give thanks, for you are especially blessed by God.  This isn’t normal for the rest of us.  Most of us all too often jam our schedules beyond full, rush from event to event, frazzled and irritable. 

   Childhood in America today mostly lacks the unplanned hours that used to provide kids with salutary boredom and the chance for adventure, real and imagined.    

   Electricity means we don’t have to go to bed when the sun goes down, and the TV and internet can easily distract us for hours.  So, sleep deprivation is commonplace, and we struggle to use the time we have, because we can barely stay awake.  All of which is to say that life today in America is often too busy, for most of us. 

   Until suddenly it isn’t.  Until suddenly the loss of a spouse or a degradation of health rob us of the reason or capacity to be busy.  Suddenly all we have is time, time that we don’t know how to fill.  Deadened, lonely time, for which we lack the energy to enjoy or use productively.   

   “Come, Lord Jesus!”   Many problems, including our struggle with time, rightly prompt Christians to cry out for the Lord’s return.  There is certainly a 7^th Sunday of Easter quality to all of Christian living.  For we all, like the Apostles before Pentecost, are waiting, waiting for the promised final appearing in glory of our Lord Jesus.  To react to the stresses of our days with a prayer for Jesus to “Come, now!” is good. 

   But the Biblical prayer starts with Amen.  “Amen, come Lord Jesus.”  (Revelation 22:20)  That is, we are taught to cry out “Amen, I believe, and so I ask you to come now, Jesus.”  Believing in the Amen, trusting that the final change to come is Good News, this can be hard.  Trusting that everything will work out is difficult, especially when we are tossed to and fro by the tumult of daily life.  We may even fear the End, even as we pray for it.  Which is a miserable way to wait.         

   The very earliest Christians might have something to teach us about waiting.  They too, had witnessed tremendous changes.  They had endured great suffering, intense trauma.  The disciples of Jesus did not experience the kind of technological, cultural and political changes that have made us dizzy.  No, life under the Roman Empire and the Jewish Sanhedrin hadn’t really changed much between A.D. 29 and A.D. 33.  However, without changing many things visible, Jesus had changed everything, turned everything upside down and inside out. 

   By the first century, the faith handed down by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had been warped by the same fallen human presuppositions about religion that are always threatening.  Jesus’ teaching was radical not because it was new, but rather because it shattered the lies that had infected the faith.  Lies that had become the accepted opinion of most. 

   Then as now, chief among these lies is that God is in His heaven, far away, inaccessible, and it is our job to achieve the necessary holiness in order to make our way to Him.  To reveal and reject this lie, God showed up in flesh of Jesus of Nazareth.  God came as a baby, grew up, and declared “No, God is not far away.  I AM the Lord, come to seek and save the lost.  I AM God, present for My people, as I always promised, only now more so.” 

   Another lie was that salvation was just for the Jews, just for the circumcised, law following, kosher eating descendants of Abraham.  But Jesus came to remove divisions, and to be the Savior of the Nations.    

   The Pharisees were masters at detailing the many good works sinners had to do to make their way to God, step by step, work by work.  Jesus said no, I AM the Way, no one comes to the Father, except through Me.  “To the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness…  ⁷ “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; ⁸ blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”  (Romans 4:5-8)

    Jesus came as the Son of David who would reign on the throne of Israel forever, but then He went and got Himself crucified.  Indeed, the Nazarene taught that to save your life, you have to lose it.  Life comes from death, the death of God’s Holy Son. 

   Jesus’ radical teachings were hard to believe.  When He breathed His last on Golgotha, it appeared to all that He was a failure, a sham, not the Savior Messiah He had claimed to be.

   But Jesus didn’t stay dead.  And that changed everything.  Suddenly, all the upside down claims of Jesus made sense, suddenly the turbulence of life was calmed by the peace that passes all understanding, the peace of knowing that Jesus died, and then rose again, never to die again.  Everything is different, because Jesus lives to share His new life with all who hear and believe. 

   Because of these changes, Jesus’ disciples began to live differently.  Peter and company hadn’t always seem to be the best students.  But now they knew the Risen and Ascended one.  And so, despite Jesus’ making them wait, for some undetermined amount of time, the Eleven acquitted themselves pretty well.  As we read in Acts chapter 1, they did three things, which could help us today. 

   1. They stuck together.  2. They prayed constantly.   3. They prepared for their future ministry by filling the roster spot Judas Iscariot abandoned. 

   How could they do all this?  They believed the promises of Jesus.  They knew the Christ had died and risen and ascended on high.  They knew their sins were forgiven, and their eternity was assured.  And so however long the wait, they were resting in Christ. 

   What can we learn from them for our lives today? 

   We should stick together.  You, and I, all of us should prioritize life in our congregation.  It’s good for you and good for your brothers and sisters in Christ.  Don’t give up gathering together.  And once you’re here, ask how you can help to make things go smoother, better.  Build up your fellow Christians, never tear them down.  Invite someone to dinner or a coffee.  Get to know a member you see at church but have never really talked to.  Stick together, for Christ is in our midst, and together with Him is where you need to be, where you want to be.

   Pray constantly.  Pray each day, for yourself, for each other, for our congregation, and sister congregations.  Pray for the Church in the whole world.  Pray for the conversion of everyone.  Pray big, and trust that the Lord will answer perfectly, even though we may not see the results right now. 

   Prepare for the future ministry of our Church.  What might this mean?  Well, certainly you could support a seminarian.  Even more, young and not so young men should consider whether they might be called to serve as pastors or other church workers.  Women too, young and not so young, should consider being a deaconess or a missionary, or somehow serving Christ’s church full time.  And each of us should work to deepen our knowledge and faith, to know Christ better, and so be better able to tell others why we rejoice to trust in Him.  For the Holy Spirit works through all His members, all the lives of every child of God.    

   Your ability to do any of this depends on your trust in the promises of Jesus.  Christ has died, and risen, and ascended on high to rule over all things.  Your sins are forgiven, and your eternity is assured, in Jesus.  However long we must wait, to our last day on earth, or until the Last Day when Jesus will return, riding the clouds, we rest in Christ. 

   We wait to celebrate Pentecost next Sunday.  But you already have the Holy Spirit.  He was gifted to you in your Baptism.  You hear Him in the voice of Scripture.  He gives you faith to trust and so rightly receive the Body and Blood of Jesus, given and shed on the Cross for the forgiveness of all your sins, given to you here at this altar.   

   Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the paraclete, that is the Helper.  Your advocate, your defender.  Also your encourager.  The one who exhorts you to grow and serve.  Whatever Word we need, the Holy Spirit is with us, speaking His powerful Word, sustaining us and moving us in the Way Jesus desires.  And so we wait with confidence, knowing that God is on our side, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, today, and forever and ever, Amen.