Scripture references: Matthew 26: 36-44
36 Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, “Sit here while I go and pray over there.” 37 And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. 38 Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me.” 39 He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” 40 Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour? 41 Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” 42 Again, a second time, He went away and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done.” 43 And He came and found them asleep again, for their eyes were heavy. 44 So He left them, went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words.
Acts 1: 4-8 (NKJV): 4 And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; 5 for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” 6 Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. 8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
As I entered the doctor’s office and saw the number of patients, my first thought was, “This is going to be a long wait.” I did not anticipate encountering so many people. I began to recount all the things I could have been doing during that waiting time. I am sure there were others who shared similar thoughts. Seemingly, waiting wasted my time, even when there was nothing else on the agenda at hand.
The disciples spent about three years following, observing, learning from the greatest teacher that earth has ever been graced with. Do you suppose they gleaned all there was to grasp from being in His company? Just about the time when they forgot the most important thing that He had told them, it happened.
At the Last Supper, Jesus told the disciples again, that He was about to leave them. He waited for that time when they were alone, together, to bid them farewell. He mused over what was in the waiting for the disciples to brace themselves for the imminent, preordained event. Probably they thought it would be another of the times that He would seek solace to commune with His Father.
Not so! The opportune time had also come for Judas.
Unknown to the other eleven, Judas was waiting for the perfect time to collect blood money. That kind of waiting had evil intent in the mind of all those who were involved. The chief priests, elders, and multitudes swooped down on Jesus, like vultures to seize their prey. Jesus willingly surrendered because His wait time had come to an end. Judas must have been a nervous wreck. Could he face the believers that he had hung around with for all those years?
Miracle after miracle had been witnessed. They attested to the goodness and merciful character of Jesus. During Judas’ waiting period, he had enough time to plot, change his mind and plot again. Yet, at some point in his association with the religious leaders, he decided that a relationship with the Master Teacher was worth the gamble. He chose to seal his own fate. He, the treasurer, was accustomed to shady acts. He stole funds. He was not content with being a petty thief, so his appetite yearned for the big job: the sale of his Leader.
That is what sin does. It corrodes the very soul of man until the conscience becomes desensitized (I Timothy 4: 2). Judas was willing to satisfy the desires of his new-found friends. He was blindsided by what he could buy with thirty pieces of silver. Its current equivalence of $216.00 was four months wages, then. It was also the price of a slave. That is the value that was placed on our Savior. Similarly, when we become involved with the wrong crowd, we tend to cultivate their habits and be swayed by their scheme. How much value is placed on Christ today? Is He being sold/exchanged again?
Concurrently, Jesus, and the disciples waited in the garden of Gethsemane. At one point He selected Peter, James, and John to go further into the garden to wait and pray. They fell asleep while Jesus waited before God, pleading for an alternative way to save mankind. Jesus was destined for the cross, but the Scripture declares that it would have been good if Judas were not born. For now, we can only speculate as to how Jesus’s mission would have been otherwise accomplished. He decided that God’s will should have the preeminence. It is in that place of waiting, when we are secluded with God, that the Holy Spirit ministers to our spirit, thus causing us to yield. Only then are we able to surrender our will to His. That place gives us the gumption to stay the course until God’s perfect will is achieved.
In the darkness of Judas’ soul, he was diligent to relay to the culprits every move that Jesus made. Judas’ focus was what was in it for him! Then, the time came when waiting was no longer an option. Money was at stake, so he made a decisive move. His wait was over, in every sense of the word. It culminated in Aceldama, the Field of Blood.
Jesus was crucified and as His body hung limp on the cross, soldiers had also waited. Some, for Him to recant, others to crucify Him, yet others to see if Elias would appear. There were those who privately wondered about Jesus’s divinity. Those are they who said, “Truly this was the Son of God.” Is waiting before the Lord, of paramount importance to us?
Although Jesus was dead, soldiers still waited to guard the tomb against plunderers. During their wait, they experienced the most miraculous event: Jesus’s resurrection. The disciples also waited, huddled in a room (John 20: 18-19) in fear for their lives, then the resurrected Lord appeared and spoke, “Peace be to you”. Jesus knows the right time to calm our fears and reveal Himself. His peace always brings gladness to our hearts.
For forty days several sightings of the risen Savior, occurred, but at the last appearance, Jesus gave the disciples another command. The omniscient One was preparing them for whatever they would experience after He returned to His Father. As time lasts, we will have uncomfortable situations. Things will disturb our hope and at times cause anxiety. Although we are admonished to be anxious for nothing (Philippians 4:6), when we live in the moment, we forget to wait in God’s presence.
The command was that they should remain in their hometown, Jerusalem, until they received the promised power. This power would enable them to become effective witnesses. Up to that point they were ardent followers, until fear of the scribes and Pharisees overcame them. Even Peter declared that he was going back to what he knew best, fishing. Others also decided to join him. (John 21:3)
Great importance is placed on a person’s last words. So, Jesus’s last words were that they would be baptized with the Holy Ghost for the purpose of sharing the gospel, far and wide. One would think that the disciples would have questions about the command that they had just been given. No! To top it all, Jesus vanished into a cloud just as the disciples were expecting Him to tell them about times and seasons. The reality was that the dynamic power for which they waited, was available for everyone who had the same expectation.
They were still in shock about Jesus’ ascension, when two Angels brought consolation. With that, the disciples, along with other followers, agreed to wait in prayer, and petition God in an upper room. While they waited, Peter reminded them of Judas’ journey, the fulfillment of the Scriptures, Jesus’s baptism and His ascension. Now, it had been nine days since the assembly had been in fasting and prayer, waiting for the promised Holy Ghost.
Reflect on all that transpired during the waiting periods, but who wants to wait? The universal tendency gravitates towards instant gratification. We look for a pacifier without realizing that that is not the real thing. That kind of disposition breeds an atmosphere of settling for the status quo. To us, nine minutes seem too long, much more nine days. Then the tenth day came and with it the miraculous descent of power.
Not surprisingly, doubters and mockers showed up from various places in Jerusalem, but their comments, criticism and disbelief did not hinder the work of the Holy Ghost. What might have happened if the believers had focused on the remarks? Probably, they too would have begun to second-guess Jesus’s last words before His ascension. The command was given to them directly. It was not a relayed message, but when we stop to decipher what the Word says, it causes a detour in our mind and wasted time. As was promised by the One who cannot lie, power to witness was evident in Peter’s discourse. (Acts 2: 14 -16).
In the Scriptures, we are given many promises. Do we believe them, although what we wait for may be delayed? Do we have the confidence that God is able to perform what He has promised? (Philippians 1: 6). We sometimes waver at promises, based on the character of their source. Tenacity dictates that we believe God’s words, expect to receive of Him, and conclude that we experience the delivery of the fulness of His grace in the waiting.
Dr. O. A. James