So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?" He replied, "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." (Acts 1:6-8)
Seriously, Lord, is now the time? Can't you see we're hurting here? We join with the disciples in this cry. And Jesus still doesn't give us an answer.
But...
We have power. We need not act as if we are in the waiting room, wringing our hands, eager for the doctor to come out and tell us everything has been fixed and it will all be all right. Jesus has left us in the operating room to carry on. We are the midwives, bearing the witness of Jesus even to the ends of the earth. Jesus is in that realm beyond time and space, in the eternal communion with the divine love from which we come and to which we will return. And we are here, and as he promised, we are full of the power of the Holy Spirit. How are we using that power? Do we even acknowledge that we have it? Are we using it in ways that, if Jesus did come back today, he would say to us "well done!"
We Christians live both in the hope that Jesus will come again and in the faith that we are empowered to continue Jesus' work of healing and reconciliation until he does. Let our question not be "Is today the day you will make things right?" but rather "Lord, how might I continue your work today?"
God is love. May we be love also.
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