Stop Staring, Start Waiting
Wednesday 5.13.26 - Acts 1:6-14 (Easter 7a)
When the future is hidden, Jesus gives us the Spirit to live faithfully in the present
TL;DR: Acts 1 shows the disciples asking for the kingdom’s timing and Jesus redirecting them toward Spirit-empowered witness. Ascension is not abandonment, and waiting is not passivity. The church learns to stop staring at what has gone from sight and return to prayerful readiness for love’s next movement.
The Question We Understand
The disciples ask the question anxious people still ask: when will God finally make things right?
The disciples ask Jesus a question I understand more than I want to admit:
“Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”
In other words:
Is this when things finally get fixed?
Is this when the pain fades?
Is this when the world is made right?
Is this when the waiting ends?
I do not think it is a bad question.
They have watched Jesus die. They have seen him alive again. They know resurrection means something has shifted at the roots of reality. Of course they want to know if this is the moment when everything broken gets restored.
I would ask too. Maybe I do ask.
In the middle-of-the-night frustration when I’m not able to sleep.
In church meetings where leaders are divided by political talking points.
In the anger when someone is excluded from belonging in the church.
In the next bad news from a doctor saying healing isn’t going as hoped.
Is this the time, Lord? How long until restoration?
Jesus Redirects the Ache
Jesus does not shame their longing for restoration,
but he redirects it away from control and toward witness.
“It is not for you to know the times or periods.”
That is not the answer anxious people hope to hear.
We want the calendar.
We want the plan.
We want a clean timeline with clear steps and a reasonable amount of control.
Jesus gives them something else:
“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you;
and you will be my witnesses.”
Not control. Power. But not power as domination.
Power as witness.
Power to tell the truth without owning the future.
Power to live as if the wounded and risen Christ really is Lord.
Power to cross the boundaries fear told us were permanent.
What Power is For
The Spirit gives power for witness, not domination.
Power is a dangerous word in the church.
We have used it badly. We have confused it with influence, control, platform, numbers, access, and the ability to make other people do what we think they should do. Sometimes we have called it kingdom work when it looked suspiciously like empire with hymns.
Acts gives us another picture.
The Spirit gives power for witness.
Not conquest.
Not coercion.
Not self-righteousness.
Witness:
A life that tells the truth about Jesus.
A community whose love makes the risen Christ believable.
A people who can move from Jerusalem to Judea, to Samaria, to the ends of the earth without turning mission into possession.
The church is not sent to own the world.
The church is sent to bear witness to the Kingdom of Love with the world.
Stop Staring
Sometimes love has to interrupt our frozen gaze and send us back to the life in front of us.
Then Jesus is lifted up. A cloud takes him from their sight.
The disciples stand there looking up toward heaven.
Of course they do. What else would they do?
They have already lost him once. Now he is gone from sight again. Their eyes follow the absence.
I know that posture too.
Sometimes we stare at what has gone.
The energy to be able to move.
The friends who moved on without you.
The version of life before the diagnosis.
The church before tribalism tore it in two.
The person who is no longer with us.
Staring can look spiritual for a while. But sometimes it is grief frozen in place.
So the messengers ask, “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?”
It is not a rebuke without tenderness.
It is an interruption.
Love has more for them than staring.
Back To The Room
Before the church speaks in public, it learns dependence in prayer.
The disciples return to Jerusalem.
I typically read past that detail. But notice…
They do not launch a campaign.
They do not build a brand.
They do not sprint into mission with adrenaline and unresolved grief.
They return to the room. And they pray.
The upper room is not a delay in the mission.
It is where mission learns dependence.
That room holds Peter, who denied Jesus.
It holds the other disciples, who scattered.
It holds women whose faithfulness Luke refuses to erase.
It holds Mary, who has carried the ache of Jesus’ whole story in her body.
It holds Jesus’ brothers, who once did not understand.
In other words, the first post-Ascension church is not impressive.
It is gathered. It is fragile. It is praying.
That is enough for the Spirit to work with.
Waiting is not Wasted
Waiting becomes holy when it makes room for the Spirit.
Waiting can feel like failure in a productivity-shaped world.
If we are not moving, building, fixing, producing, scaling, or solving, we assume we are wasting time.
But Acts begins with waiting.
Not passive waiting.
Prayerful waiting.
Communal waiting.
Honest waiting.
Waiting that admits we cannot manufacture the Spirit.
Waiting that lets desire be purified before power arrives.
Power without prayer can make the church dangerous.
Power without waiting can make us anxious.
Power without love can make us loud and cruel.
So Jesus tells them to wait. And the waiting becomes holy.
Witness From the Wound
The risen Christ sends wounded people to bear witness without needing to own the future.
This week began with Jesus praying for fragile disciples before they were ready.
Then 1 Peter told pressured disciples to stay tender and awake.
Now Acts shows those disciples learning the posture of witness:
Do not control the timetable.
Do not stare forever at what has gone from sight.
Return to the room.
Pray with the people.
Wait for the Spirit.
Then go where love sends you.
That may be the message for us too.
The kingdom is not ours to schedule.
The Spirit is not ours to manage.
But witness is ours to receive.
Not as pressure. As participation.
Christ reigns with wounds. The Spirit comes to wounded people. And the world is still waiting for communities whose power looks like truth, mercy, courage, and love.
Let’s Talk
How does this passage point to Christ?
Christ is the risen and ascended Lord whose reign is not absence.
Christ redirects the disciples from controlling the timetable to receiving the Spirit.
Christ gives power for witness, not domination.
Christ sends the church across boundaries without turning mission into possession.
Christ’s Ascension means wounded love is enthroned over every lesser power.
Christ remains present through the Spirit who forms a praying, waiting, witnessing people.
How does this passage form Christlike people?
It trains us to release the need to know and control God’s timing.
It teaches us to stop staring at what is gone and return to faithful presence.
It forms us in prayer before performance and waiting before action.
It redefines power as witness, truth, mercy, courage, and love.
It gathers fragile people into community before sending them into mission.
It prepares us to cross wounded boundaries by the Spirit rather than by force.
This came at the right time. Thanks Paul!