Introduction
You’ve got to admire the British adventurer Sir
Ranulph Fiennes who, just four months after double heart-bypass surgery, and aged
59, ran seven marathons in one week on six different continents. He would have run
one more, but bad weather in Antarctica prevented it. Just the idea of running one
marathon in Antarctica boggles the mind, doesn’t it?
Fiennes said afterwards that his biggest test was
marathon number 4 in Singapore because of the tropical climate. With
temperatures reaching 32°C Fiennes barely finished the course – but he did it, before
going on to run three more over the next few days.
It goes without saying that you cannot achieve a feat like
that without some very serious preparation. Every marathon runner trains hard –
how much more this man, given the scale of his challenge and so soon after major
surgery?
The evangelisation of the entire planet, from a standing
start, was an almost infinitely more difficult objective for the early church
than those 7 marathons in a week. We’re talking about by far the most ambitious
mission in the history of the world.
Just 120 people (that’s the precise number given in
v15) who have no map or compass, let alone aeroplane to reach every nation of
planet Earth. How did those charged with that challenge prepare for the mission?
Acts 1 tells us that they did three things; simple
things, that are not beyond any of us here this morning. It says that they gathered,
they waited and they prayed.
1.
They Gathered
When it says in Acts 1.12 that the apostles returned
to Jerusalem after the Ascension, we know that they went together and stayed together.
Here’s what we read: Acts 1.12-14. “Then they returned
to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem.” They’re just
across the Kidron Valley from each other. It’s a short walk. “A Sabbath day’s
journey” is about 1 kilometre.
“When they arrived,” it says, “they went upstairs, to
the room where they were staying.” And it tells us who was there; “Peter, John,
James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of
Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas the son of James.”
No, not that
Judas. Not Judas Iscariot. This is another Judas. Rotten luck if your name is
Judas. You introduce yourself as one of Jesus’ apostles. “Oh yeah, I think I’ve
heard of them. What’s your name again?” “Judas.” “Oh, I’ve heard all about
you.” “No, not him, I’m the other
Judas.”
Sometimes you just get stuck with something, through
no fault of your own.
Verse 14 says that the women are there as well. And
Mary, the mother of Jesus who is also a woman, obviously, but who is in a
category of her own.
- She is the chosen
one, the special one, who brought him into the world.
- She
pondered things in her heart at the time of his birth.
- She saw how
he astounded the temple scholars when he was 12 years old.
- She
witnessed his first miracle at Cana.
- She was
there at the cross, there for her boy until the bitter end.
- And now, she’s a follower and humble disciple of her own son.
Some of you here
today are mothers with sons. I’m sure your boys are all wonderful individuals, and
you’re very proud of them, but how many of you would publicly worship your son
as the immaculate son of God? But Mary did.
And Jesus’ little brothers
are there too, notice. Some of you have a big brother. I bet every one of them
are great guys who you look up to and admire! But how many of you would stand
up and say, hand on heart, “My big brother is without sin, he’s definitely worthy
of praise and worship?” But Jesus’ brothers did.
They didn’t believe
in him during his ministry. It was classic sibling rivalry. They teased him. They confronted him. They
said he was out of his mind. But now he has appeared to them risen from the
dead and they too have gone from being sceptics and cynics to full-on
believers.
So there are 120 people in this room including Jesus’
family. It may not be very many given the scale of the task ahead of them, but
in one room, that’s quite a crowd. That’s a pretty full room.
The upper room would be on the first floor in a
flat-roofed building of simple structure. There’s precious little ventilation, no
air conditioning, you’re just under the roof, so it’s probably sweltering up
there.
This is, by the way, the very first mention in
Scripture of the post-Ascension church – and you find men and women together. We sort of take this for
granted, but it is still extremely counter-cultural in the Middle East to this
day. In synagogues, even in the 21st century, and of course mosques
likewise, you find the men are separate from the women.
In the Judaism of the First Century, only men were
allowed to sit at a rabbi’s feet to learn, but we know that Jesus gave women
too access into that privileged inner circle. Mary of Bethany was commended for
doing just that instead of being busy in the kitchen.
Throughout Jesus’ ministry, women:
- ministered to
Jesus’ practical needs, supporting him from their own means
- women stayed
with him to the end while most of the men fled
- women were the last at the cross
- women were up
first to tend the grave on Easter Sunday
- women were the
first to meet him
- and women were
the first to testify that he was alive
2.
They Waited
So, they all gathered together, men and women, and
then they waited.
At their last meeting with Jesus, shortly before the
Ascension, Jesus gave them some careful instructions: “Do not leave Jerusalem,
but wait for the gift my Father
promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptised with water,
but in a few days, you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit.”
So, they wait. And they wait. Hours pass. Nothing
happens. Days come and go. Still nothing.
Do you like waiting? I bet no one does. I don’t like
waiting around at all. I start to fidget. Waiting for buses, waiting for trains,
waiting for late people to turn up. When I was a kid, waiting for Christmas was
like physical torture. It felt like a breach of my human rights! I’m a doer. I
don’t like wasting time when there’s work to be done. But they waited, and waited,
and… w a i t e d.
The Norwegian theologian and author Ole Hallesby used
to talk about mining in his country in the early twentieth century. There were
long periods of time, he writes, when deep holes are being bored with great
effort into the hard rock. To bore the holes deeply enough into the most
strategic spots took steadiness, patience and lots of skill.
Once a hole was drilled, they put a stick of dynamite
into it and connected it to a fuse. To light the fuse and watch what happens is
easy and exciting. You see immediate ‘results.’ It goes kaboom, and pieces of
rock fly off in every direction.
And then Hallesby says this: “The more painstaking
work requires skill and patient strength of character, but anyone can light a
fuse.” How many of my prayers are like “fuse-lighting” prayers, the kind I soon
give up on if I do not get immediate results?
Handling the tedium is part of what makes for
effective prayers. Those who really believe in the power of prayer will cultivate
a patient prayer life of “hole-boring.”
3.
They Prayed
Which brings us to the third thing they did – they prayed.
They weren’t wasting their time as they waited. They invested their time in
prayer.
In fact, it says “they all joined together constantly
in prayer.” So this was dedicated, continuous and organised. It seems to have
been 24/7, possibly with shifts covered by several teams, sleep and comfort
breaks and so on.
And the basic prayer seems to have been, “Come, Holy
Spirit” because when God sent his Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, that rolling
prayer meeting stopped; the prayer was answered.
Since the days of the early church Christians have
prayed for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Every week at Holy Communion, we ask
the Holy Spirit to come. Many songs have been written about it, from Come Holy Ghost Our Souls Inspire to Spirit of the Living God Fall Afresh on Me.
All the great revivals and awakenings were preceded by concerted prayer for an
outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus expected us to ask for the Holy Spirit when he
said, (in Luke 11.13) “How much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy
Spirit to those who ask him!”
Ending
So, as we gather and wait and ask… and wait and ask…
and wait and ask… as we have been doing in 10 these days of Thy Kingdom Come, may
God refresh and renew and anoint and empower his church again for the mission he
started then and that he has called us to complete.
Let’s pray…
Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees and Saint Mary's Long Newton, 9 June 2019
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