The Blessing of In-Between Time - Acts 1:6-14

One of the strange things about the Gospels and the Book of Acts is how quickly everything seems to happen in the narrative. Nets are dropped. Storms are calmed. Demons are cast out. People leave everything and immediately follow Jesus. The story moves at breathtaking speed. But we know that human beings do not actually change that quickly. Things like trust, forgiveness, and grief take time. The healing of body and soul almost always takes longer than we would like. Even learning how to pray takes time.

I once heard someone suggest that the biblical stories have to move that quickly because papyrus was expensive. The writers had limited room. They couldn’t include every meal, every long conversation, every evening spent wondering what in the world had just happened. So we have inherited something like a highlight reel.

But every once in a while, Scripture slows down enough for us to glimpse the ordinary pace of spiritual life. And today’s reading from Acts gives us one of those moments.

Jesus has ascended. Pentecost has not yet arrived. The disciples are suspended between two great events. And what are they doing in the meantime? They are not preaching yet or traveling. They’re not changing the world just yet. They return to Jerusalem and gather in the upstairs room. And they pray.

It is such an unspectacular little passage. Which is perhaps why I love it. Because surely there was more happening in that upper room than formal prayer alone. Surely they were eating meals and trying to sleep and replaying old conversations with Jesus late into the night. Surely someone was washing dishes or catching up on the laundry. Surely someone was anxious. And surely they were all wondering what would happen next.

They did not yet know that they were becoming the Church. They were simply living through an in-between time as faithfully as they could. And perhaps that is why this small passage feels important to me this year. Because many of us know something about in-between times. Times when clarity has not yet arrived. Times when we are waiting for direction, or healing, or energy, or hope. Times when we are simply trying to remain faithful without knowing exactly what comes next.

The church calendar gives us this strange little pause between Ascension and Pentecost. Jesus has departed. The Spirit has not yet come in power. And the disciples are told, essentially: stay put, wait, and pray. That is not usually how we imagine spiritual greatness, especially for those who were closest to Jesus. We tend to idealize the spiritual life as dramatic and decisive, with big moments, breakthroughs, and clear revelations. We want to be transformed that way, instantly and permanently. We want the swashbuckling version of Christianity: bold, effective, always moving, always productive.

And we live in a culture that rewards exactly that kind of frantic motion. So much to do, so little time. So much urgency. So much noise and distraction. Even rest can begin to feel like one more thing we are failing to accomplish correctly. But the Book of Acts quietly suggests something else. It suggests that God also works in waiting, in prayer, and in ordinary faithfulness. God works in communities that gather together in uncertainty and simply remain open to God.

The writer Kathleen Norris tells a wonderful story about attending church and noticing a deacon clearing the altar after communion. He was carefully gathering crumbs and drinking the last few drops of consecrated wine, and suddenly she realized: he was doing the dishes. That recognition moved her deeply. Because there, right in the middle of the sacred liturgy, was an ordinary household task. And it helped her understand something important: holiness is not separate from ordinary life. The holy is often found precisely there. Norris eventually wrote a beautiful little book called The Quotidian Mysteries, about the spiritual significance of ordinary tasks and daily rhythms. She argues that chores and routines are not interruptions to spiritual life. Very often, they are the spiritual life. I think she’s right.

Most of our lives are not lived at dramatic mountaintops. They unfold in conversations around tables. In errands and laundry and caregiving and showing up for one another. Most faithfulness is quiet, repetitive and unremarkable from the outside. And God seems perfectly willing to work with us there.

In fact, I wonder whether this season between Ascension and Pentecost has something to teach us about sabbath. Summer is arriving. Schedules loosen a little. Some of us travel. Some of us finally slow down enough to notice how tired we are. If, in your life, you are ready for things to slow down a little, you are not alone. Perhaps this unique season offers an invitation to embrace a bit of sabbath and inhabit our lives more attentively. To pray without hurry sometimes. To sit on the porch a little longer. To read slowly. To share unproductive conversations with people we love. To notice the beauty of ordinary days. And this, I think, it true for us as a community, too. Christ Church itself has been living through an in-between season. We’ve prayed our way through jackhammering and construction dust and disruption, waiting for the joy of reopening fully. Sabbath can be good news for our church right now.

The first Pentecost itself began not with frantic activity, but with waiting. With a community gathered together in prayerful openness. The disciples in that upper room did not yet know what was coming. They did not know that the Spirit was already drawing near, or that the Church itself was being born in their waiting. They simply stayed together and prayed. They attended to the ordinary things before them. And somehow, in that quiet in-between time, God was preparing them for big ministry ahead. I have a feeling God is doing the very same with Christ Church.