(4/22/2026) Acts 1:6-14
I really wanted to do Psalm 68, in fact I just blobbed out a few hundred words, but also - that is not something I am going to publish today. This is just a callback for me to remember to go check my prayer log in three years, and we'll see where we are with it.
I also took some comfort in Peter because I am feeling anxious. This has been a time of some turmoil for me, as I have not been quiet about sharing in these pages, and these weeks since Easter have been exceptionally straining. God is good and also I want to know what the plan is, and in this case I am flying blind - which is not fun to suggest since I learned to fly in the mountains, where a few seconds of inattention at straight and level can be the difference between hundreds of feet of altitude. There is not much I can do but sit and spin, and prepare for what may never be with whatever actions are clear and not contradictory, and offer constant prayer for everyone involved. Selah.
And yet, here we are at the beginning of Acts, with Jesus. Where else could I go today, but to him?
Six months ago I believed that I was very patient. I shopped for my penultimate car for 5 years. My new one is electric, and I first started watching for an EV - back then, a conversion - in 2008: 18 years in the shopping. Other stuff follows the same pattern: I sat on my new breadmaker for a couple years, on travel plans I still haven't made, on insurance people and vendors and waitstaff. I can sit on hold forever, as long as I don't have somewhere else to be. Someone is walking slowly in front of me? Kids are a little behind? Kitchen is slow? No problem. The kids used to play a game, "can I annoy dad," and I always won (I think - although check with Ellie, if anyone won a round it was her). Even Court taking six months: it was terrible, but I was upset at the injustice more than impatient at the delay, and I was absurdly busy the whole time.
And ... then, this past half-year. I discovered, to my great surprise, that when I really care about something I am incredibly impatient. In retrospect, most of the time I am ambivalent, or I can use my ability to distract myself, or I am just not in a hurry, and so in practice it is not that I was ever patient; it was just that I had never had my patience tested! Once I actually wanted something to happen, I was focused on it, I couldn't distract myself, and I was exposed for the fraud I was: for very nearly every day in my prayer log I can find something just exactly like "Lord, is this the time?"
Well? Is it?
God promised the salvation of Israel, so for these faithful disciples it really was just a matter of time. They were 80-odd years into the Roman occupation, memories of the Maccabees were fading, every day the authority of Rome grew stronger and the people grew more frustrated. Jesus came, was executed - and if I am a disciple and he comes back, I am immediately getting excited and thinking he is going to take his revenge.
And how well he might! The Romans were not exactly gentle; these were rough-and-tumble mercenaries, stuck in a land they did not like, a law completely unto themselves. Remember only a Roman could judge a Roman, during the travels of Paul? That worked for the bad people, too. Jesus came teaching peace, but these people only understand swords; the disciples were there when the outcome of that "turn the other cheek" practice showed up, and they scattered in horror.
Obviously Jesus was not going for that, and the revenge was deferred for our sake, and praise God for it. But I want to sit in this place for a moment: this place where Jesus is, where the disciples are, where pain and suffering and injustice are running amok, where children are starving and their parents are being forced into labor and the rich and well-connected are enjoying the high life. Oh, Jesus, come clean up this world! Protect the widows and parent the orphans! "Lord, is this the time?"
630,000 people died from AIDS in 2024. This is a very treatable illness, but treatment is expensive. Those who have, get it; those who do not, die. We are taught as believers to heal the sick and comfort the afflicted, and God knows that we try - but the field is too big, the resources are too small, the workers are too few. "Lord, is this the time?"
One in 27 children died before the age of 5 in 2024. Cause for celebration? Leading causes of death: infectious diseases, complications of birth, war. Want to guess the top five countries by deaths per thousand? Nigeria, Niger, Somalia, Chad, Guinea, all above 9%; western countries aren't even close. "Nobody cares about Africa" is from a movie that came out in 2005! But it is hard to send medical supplies to Africa, private groups are unable to access many areas, foreign aid is unpopular, war is profitable; the financial cost of losing the children is lower than the profit of not dealing with it. "Lord, is this the time?"
Americans with incomes below $20000/year were 3.5x more likely to be using illegal drugs than people with incomes above $75000 per year, in 2013. Current data are very hard to find, but this was right in the profit-taking that led to the many lives destroyed by opiods. The statistics had many correlations, but the income chart shows that more money makes addiction less destructive - or, addiction leads to lower income - but either way it is clear that harm is specifically coming to the poor, the one group the apostles demanded Paul remember. The argument proffered in the study is that the poor despair more quickly than the wealthy and outcomes degenerate. If only these people had hope of our Christ, and the help of the brethren - but the task is so big and the need is so great. "Lord, is this the time?"
There are many many many more terrible things happening in our world. Parents bury children, children bury parents, lovers bury loves, liars bury truth, money buries justice, war buries everything. And every one of these affected is a person loved by our Creator; the dead children, the dead families, the dead friends all. But we are called, as Christians in community with each other, to help the poor and needy and sick, to go into the world, to lay hands of healing, to bring the message of the savior to those who most need it. Perhaps we can't help all 630,000, but we can help one - maybe we can't buy health but we can sit, and care, and cry, and prepare and hope for the coming of Christ with those mourning parents or sickly friends or addicted children.
The church is changing - never the message, but the numbers show the very terrible truth that the working poor have less access to worship and that more people are believing in Jesus but do not attend church. AI is fueling changes, as speakers go from poor writers to satisfactory ones; but, blandly averaged sermons are going to be no more compelling than the bland text we will see in every other area of our lives, and good sermons are going to get harder and harder to make stand out. We need Jesus, that individual minister at times, and at others to 5,000 men plus women and children [seriously, guys, get it together; I know it's hard to count people at that volume but sheesh]. So does the rest of God's creation. Pain abounds and it needs our hands and feet to follow Christ, to heal the ones and tens and hundreds and, yes, perhaps the 630,000 or 1 in 27 or 8 billion, too.
I do not have a good handle on exactly what the next stage of the church is, but as someone who is working on the edge of AI I can see far enough to know that something about our practices will need to change if the church is to be compelling in this environment, and also that there will be a fantastic and unique need for the physical presence of Christ's church over the next decade or two. I don't know if Jesus is coming back today or next year or in another two millennia, but I would be a fool if I did not recognize that it is time for fervent prayer, like the named apostles and Mary and the unnamed women [seriously, Luke, get a grip] and siblings responded in our passage.
"Lord, is this the time?" For us, I think it must be coming soon: maybe or maybe not for Jesus' final victory, but definitely for his body to get moving. Let us pray together that we have some idea what to do, in this time that is coming for us.