Right Here, Right Now

Acts 1:6-14

When I was a kid, I was a world-class procrastinator.   If the lawn needed mowing, I could come up with a thousand reasons as to why it could be done tomorrow.  If there was a school assignment due, 10PM the night before seemed like as good a time as any to pull it all together.  As a kid I also had dreams of being a rock star and playing guitar in a world famous band in front of millions of adoring fans.  However, I was always more than willing to wait until tomorrow to get around to all of those bothersome little details like joining a band, or even really learning how to play the guitar. 

The problem was, I had trouble focusing.  Whenever there was an assignment or responsibility put before me, my mind would always be in the future not the present.  It was my own clever little way of running an end around past all of the things that I would rather not have to deal with.  If I could live in the world of tomorrow, I thought, then maybe I could avoid the challenges and problems of today.

It was, as things turned out, not the best overall approach to life.  The yard work piled up.  My grade point average plummeted.  And I don’t need to tell you the status of my quest to be the next Jimi Hendrix.  What I discovered after a few difficult years, was the truth that life has to be lived in the present.  While one might be tempted to live in the past or dream of the future, a couple of the most basic realities of life are that the past is gone, and the future isn’t a guarantee.  And so, with the past gone, and the future far from certain, all that we have left is the knowledge that if we want to live life to its fullest, it has to be lived right here, and right now. 

This is the same lesson that was being learned by Jesus’ disciples in the first chapter of the book of Acts.  Here at the end of the somewhat mysterious 40 days that He had spent with his disciples following his resurrection, Jesus gathered them together and presented them with the ultimate challenge.  Spread his love and forgiveness to the ends of the earth.

On the day following Jesus’ crucifixion, his followers were found hiding behind locked doors or running off down the road to Emmaus.  In an attempt to avoid the difficult realities presented by the apparent death of their leader, as well as the almost certain persecution that would be coming their way, they hid themselves and ran away hoping that Jesus might come back and that things might go back to the way that they used to be when Jesus was with them and calling the shots.

Luckily for them, Jesus did return, but for only 40 days.  And so now at the conclusion of that short little reunion, once again Jesus was leaving his disciples.  And so, overwhelmed at the challenge of being tasked with carrying the love and forgiveness of Jesus to the very ends of the earth; and having their comfort with the way things used to be stripped away from them with Jesus ascension to heaven, the disciples looked to the future.

We hear the first hint of their escapist future gazing in verse 6, when in response to Jesus beginning to prepare them for life without him, the disciples responded by asking, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” Hoping that Jesus might still make this world changing thing easy for them by doing it himself through the establishment of a kind of “The United States of Jesus” where he would use military and political force to make everybody on earth play nice, the disciples were asking Jesus, “Are you going to do it, and when?”  Like me waiting for the fictional rock band to show up and make me a star, Jesus disciples were waiting for their future to fix the problems of their today.

But Jesus would have none of that.  And so he said to them, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority.  But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.  And then a cloud took him out of their sight.”vs. 8-9

Then the story continues, “And when he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.  And while they were gazing into heaven, as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?  This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

“It is not for you to know the times or the seasons” said Jesus.  And likewise in Matthew chapter 6,“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.  Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day.”   Then he added,  “You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.”  Then he ascended to heaven leaving them behind to do his will. 

But paralyzed by the overwhelming nature of Jesus’ call to heal the world with love and grace, and hoping that maybe, just maybe he might come back again and take care of things for them, they stood, and they stared at the sky, and they waited until the angels called them back to reality charging them to get their eyes out of the sky, off of the horizon, and back on the very present and pressing task that Jesus had given them.

The past and the future seem so tempting when we are confronted by the challenges of living today.  In our personal lives we deal with the difficulties of being a family in a frantic world.  We feel the pain of loss as we wrestle with illness, and the death of those that we love.  We struggle with making ends meet in a troubled economy, and we grow anxious in the face of a war that just won’t go away.As a church we look at the changing and challenging world around us and the overwhelming need for us to obey Jesus’ commission to go and make disciples of all nations, and it is so tempting to hide behind nostalgia and long for the “Good old days.”

But deep down in our heart of hearts we know that the good old days are never coming back.  And if we are really honest, we’ll realize that they too had troubles of their own.  And so, realizing that the past is gone, we begin to long for the future, a time when Jesus will come back to earth and make every thing better again.  But then we hear the echo of Jesus’ voice as he said to his disciples, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority.”

As I said before, the past is gone, and the future is not a guarantee, and so what we are left with is right here and right now.  Right here are your family and friends and co-workers who are longing to know that you care about them.  And right now is your only guaranteed opportunity to show them how much you really care.  Right here there is a community and a world that has forgotten that God loves them, and right now is our chance to remind them.  Right here is the place that God has chosen to locate you on the planet earth.  And right now is the time that God has called you to live.

They say that this moment is called the present because God offers it to you as a gift.   How will you express your appreciation for God’s precious gift, right here, right now?Amen.