Introduction
Every year, the church prayerfully participates in the 10 days following Jesus’ ascension. During that time, the disciples awaited the promised gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Now, we learn to wait with them, longing for the Spirit’s renewing work and tracing a pattern in Scripture: God ascends to reign and fills people with the Holy Spirit so they can rule with him.
We have seen the enthroned God fill humanity with his Spirit, and rival powers establish a counterfeit kingdom, subjecting humans to death. We have followed Jesus as he ascends as King, restoring humanity’s calling. We have joined Mary and the disciples in the upper room, learning the posture of prayerful waiting. We have watched the Twelve made whole again.
Now, we go back in the story to focus on Jesus’ central command for this season: Wait. His command rests on the promise that the Father will give the Spirit.
Waiting for the Father’s Promise
Acts says that Jesus “ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father” (Acts 1:4). The enthroned King does not send out his disciples before he fills them. As Mary knew well from her virgin pregnancy, the Kingdom comes by God’s gift, not human power.
Waiting is a creature’s proper posture before its Creator. To wait is to confess that God is King and we are his servants. When we wait on God, we enter into the seventh-day rest under the Kingship of the ascended Jesus. Waiting receives the Kingdom as a gift from above and refuses the rebellious power-grab of Babel.
In Acts, Jesus names what his disciples are waiting for: the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5). The Father’s promise is God himself—God’s own presence filling his people to rule with him in the Kingdom of the ascended Jesus.
John’s Preparatory Baptism
Jesus ties this promise to John the Baptist. John’s whole ministry was a call to repentant waiting. John appeared in the wilderness, preparing Israel for God’s long-awaited King. He called people to repent and to ready themselves for the reign of God (Mark 1:1-8). As a sign of preparation and repentance, many were baptized. People entered the waters, leaving behind rival kingdoms, and rose cleansed and ready to receive the King of heaven.
When Jesus rose from the waters of baptism, the Holy Spirit descended on him, and the Father confirmed that he was the chosen Son of God (Mark 1:9-11).
So, Jesus tells his disciples that John baptized with water, but they will be baptized with the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5). Just as the Spirit descended on Jesus at his baptism, so now the Spirit will descend on the disciples.
Join the Waiting
After Jesus was filled with the Spirit, he proclaimed the Kingdom of God everywhere he went (Mark 1:14-15). He showed he was King—God’s own presence come to earth—through his preaching and miracles. And Jesus’ disciples will share in that same Kingdom power.The Kingdom has come because the King has ascended, and they will continue his work through the Spirit.
In the waiting, the church learns dependence. In the waiting, God turns our hearts from rival thrones and toward himself. In the waiting, the people of Godprepare to receive the Spirit.
Guided Prayer
We pray for the Father’s promised gift as Jesus, the Spirit-filled ascended King, taught his disciples:
Our Father in heaven
Hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts,
As we also have forgiven those indebted to us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.
Amen.