Scripture Reflection – Ascension Sunday (27-28th of May)

We spend a great deal of our lives waiting.  We were born into a waiting family – our mother’s waiting for the contractions to speed up so that we might be born.  We wait for so many things: people to arrive, meals to be prepared, emails to come through, computers to speed up, results of one form or another to arrive.  Waiting is a big part of our daily lives.

How do we perceive the waiting experience?  A waste of time?  A space to stop and relax?  An experience of anxiety?  It’s all of these.  Waiting is a time of looking forwards – its future orientated for something to occur.  It was like this for the eleven apostles as they set out for the mountain in Galilee where Jesus had arranged to meet them.  And then Jesus giving them the charge to make disciples of all nations and Baptise them in the name of the Trinity.  However, they had to wait for the Spirit at Pentecost to imbue them with power.

The apostles and the disciples had the charge, the Spirit and the Good News – but they had to wait on the response of people to their message and mission.

We too have been charged like the apostles and disciples with the Good News for our mission today.  The difference for us is: “Do we give enough waiting time for the message we are entrusted with to permeate our being?”  We have a lot of waiting to do – we must set time aside to reflect on the message and wait for the Spirit to work within us a deeper faithfulness.

Let us set aside time each day to ‘wait upon the Lord’ so that the Spirit can work within our hearts the message of the Good New we are called to live and bring to one another.