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The Holy Gospel according to John, the seventeenth chapter. Glory to you, O Lord. After Jesus had spoken these words to his disciples, he looked up to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed. I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you. For the words that you gave to me, I have given to them, and they have received them, and know in truth that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf. I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one. This is the gospel of the Lord. You may be seated. From the one who was, is, and is to come. Amen. I remember when David and I were a married couple in seminary, and it was one January, we called it J term, where you only take one class. So we each had a class, and of course, it's very concentrated all day, lots of work, and you complete it in that month. But we were also in a time of waiting. We'd been waiting for his sister, who was on a transplant list, to get that call to say there were lungs available for her. And we knew that as soon as that call came in, we were going to Wisconsin to be there. So the day arrived, and it happened to be during J term. The call came. Betsy was heading to the hospital because there was a viable transplant available. And so we threw our things in the car, we sent messages to our professors, and we left for Wisconsin. We had warned our professors, we said, you know, we're in this waiting time, and so when we get that call, we're going. And they were very supportive. They said, just go, don't worry, we'll figure out classes, final projects, all those things. Because you've been waiting so long for that news. When it finally comes in, you have to move. We'd been married seven years and we were in our first calls as pastors in Northeast South Dakota. And we were excited to be parents. We didn't know what it would be like. We'd had some struggles along the way, and so there was a little anxiousness as well in that waiting time. And I remember going to that follow-up doctor's appointment. And my doctor was looking at me and she said, you know, I'm supposed to be gone this weekend, but I think I'm going to stick around because I have this feeling that I'm going to see you again. And since this was the hospital in Sisseton and it wasn't like there were a lot of availability in the area, she was right. And I was very thankful that Dr. Peterson stuck around that weekend. Because when things started happening, we headed to Sisseton to the hospital, and we had called grandparents, future grandparents, my parents in Minnesota. And so they jumped in their car and they came in to Sissitan thinking that they were there to welcome their grandchild. They got in and we were still waiting. We were still waiting. And then we realized, well, you know, that plan that we had that we thought we were gonna do, throw it out the window because we have to do something else. And we had to get moving, and thankfully, Corbin showed up to the world, and there he was. Well, I wonder for you, what stories do you have about waiting? If it wasn't a birth, if it was a birth, an adoption, maybe, maybe waiting for a military spouse to return home. Maybe it was waiting for a pet to be found that had been lost, waiting for school to be over, or waiting for that news about what college you were going to attend. Maybe it's waiting for rain. Anyone here waiting for some more rain? Maybe it's waiting for a room to become available in a care facility that you really need for a loved one. Well, what does it feel like to be in that time of waiting? And then think about when things start to happen. When things start to move and that wait is over. What do you feel at that point as well? Well, we heard that reading from Acts 1 about the risen Lord talking with his disciples about the promise of the Holy Spirit coming to them before Jesus ascends into heaven, right before their very eyes. And then as the story goes on, I listen to that and I hear that the apostles are there standing, gazing up into heaven after Jesus is lifted out of their sight. And I wonder, what are they waiting for as they stand there and gaze up looking into heaven? Maybe they are waiting for the answer to their question: Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel? Do they stand there waiting and they've asked this question? Are they anxious? Are they gleeful? Are they impatient, thinking, all right, we've waited long enough, this restoration, can it happen right now? So we're just gonna stay here and gaze up into heaven until it happens around us. Well, Jesus had reminded them that it's not for them to know the time. It is in God's authority for the restoration to take place. Jesus' very presence is God's way of letting them know that what God has promised will take place. He tells them not to worry because in this waiting, whether they're patient waiters or impatient, that they would not be alone, that this gift of the Holy Spirit would be upon them and upon all people. And that's when Jesus ascended through the clouds into heaven, and they stand there, simply looking up. So we are told that two men in white robes show up to remind them that they need to keep going. They can't simply stand there and wait and gaze into heaven. They have to get on the move. And yet they don't move very far, do they? They return to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath-day journey away. And somebody last night said, you know what? I looked up, I looked up what a Sabbath day journey is. And it says it's about a half a mile. They enter the room upstairs where they were staying with the other disciples of Jesus, and they return to their household. And what do they do? They devote themselves to prayer. They're waiting and they're preparing. And in their own transition time that they find themselves in, we are told that they devote themselves to prayer. Because they are gathered in that household for a reason. While staying with them, Jesus ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. This, Jesus said, is what you have heard from me. For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. So there they are. They were on the move, they went to the household, they gathered together to wait for the Holy Spirit, and they devoted themselves to prayer while they waited for that promise. Maybe they were weary and impatient, or maybe they were hopeful and patient as they waited and prayed. Because Jesus told them that they would not know the time in which all this would take place. So they were gazing up into heaven, and I wondered for them what were they waiting for? But I also wonder for you as well. What do you find yourself waiting for? Do you find yourself stopped sometimes, just gazing up, hoping maybe somebody can nudge you along, or are you the one that comes along and thinks, stop just standing there and gazing up into heaven? It's time for us to move. Because as a community of God in this church and in this place, maybe you feel like you're in a waiting time and a holding pattern again when you're being served by a long-term interim pastor. Maybe you're wondering, what are we waiting for? Why are we not moving? And at this time, you're still in a preparation time, but it's not that you're simply standing here. It's not that you're standing still and gazing up into heaven because there's so much that you are doing together as the body of Christ. You're worshiping together, you're praying together, you've been celebrating together, graduates, confirmats. You think of all those things that are already taking place. You're serving your community together. You may be in a time of waiting, and yet you are also a people of God devoted to prayer, worship, and the actions that God calls you to do. You and the disciples in this story may have a lot in common. And God is among you, and can and will bring renewal and restoration through our prayers and through the very actions of us being God's people together. So we are not standing here gazing up into heaven, not knowing what to do. We are on the move as God's people. Because you think of all those stories from your life where you found yourself waiting, waiting and waiting. And even if you don't remember how you got from there to the next thing, you made a move. You took some action that took you from point A to point B, even if you're not, you can't recall where that was. And in all those stories, God was among us. That Holy Spirit being there, that gift given to us to help us in our waiting and in our moving. Jewish biblical scholar Abraham Heschel wrote that to pray is to open a window to God. And when I hear that, I think, we've got a lot of windows open right now. We've got a lot of windows open to God. We are praying, praying about our joys, about our challenges, praying whether we're patient waiters or impatient waiters. Both are okay. Windows open to God to hear God's call and to help us be on the move again as God's people. Thanks be to God for the promises of God, for renewal, for restoration, and for you who are here being God's people and serving. Amen.