Get Ready

Acts 1:15-17; 21-26

How do you get ready?

Think about your morning routine – or about preparing for travel, or a big event. When you need to get something done, or when you know something big is about to happen, how do you get ready?

For many of us, those answers will involve coffee. (show of hands) Or tea, or diet coke?

Getting ready often involves clothing, or getting equipment together. What else is involved? Making lists. Washing. Checking the weather or the news.

Does anyone here “get ready” by creating some silence or space for yourself? By prayer? Getting ready – for the day, or something momentous – is often a mental and spiritual exercise.

What about throwing dice, or casting lots?
No? Nobody?

I’m not surprised – that’s not a usual method of “getting ready” for 21^st century Americans. But we heard about how it was an essential part of “getting ready” for the believers in Jerusalem, about six weeks after Jesus’ resurrection.

After the first shock of Easter, they’d all spent time with the risen Jesus, learning all over again about the kingdom of God, getting oriented to a world in which death isn’t guaranteed, a world God had transformed in ways they hadn’t anticipated. 

Now Jesus is gone again – lifted straight up into heaven while they watched – but he’s told them what will happen next:

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; he told them, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

So here they are in Jerusalem, Jesus risen but gone, given a mission to carry the story to the ends of the earth, and the promise that they will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.

And they know they’re not ready.

Because they are incomplete.

Judas is gone. Dead of betrayal. And since twelve is the number representative of God’s whole people, the count of the tribes who complete the kingdom of Israel, it feels wrong to start this mission of witnessing to the kingdom of God with eleven apostles instead of twelve.

So in order to get ready for the power of the Spirit and their work of witnessing, they try to complete the circle. They sort out what they think it takes to become one of “the Twelve”: time spent with Jesus throughout his ministry, through the resurrection. They pray for guidance and revelation, and then leave it up to God through the tools of chance.

And the lot fell on Matthias. And the eleven became twelve.

And then they felt ready.

This is the only thing we ever hear about Matthias, by the way, in the whole of the New Testament, the whole of scripture. That’s how we know this story isn’t really about him. It’s about completion, about God’s people getting ready, ready for the inspiration and power of the Holy Spirit, getting ready for work; ready for our work as witnesses of Jesus, in Moorestown or Mount Laurel, in New Jersey or Philadelphia, and to the ends of the earth.

How do you get ready for that?

How do you get ready, now, for the inspiration and power of the Holy Spirit to pour all over you? How do you get ready, now, to be a witness of Jesus at home, and in your daily neighborhoods, and to the ends of the earth?

The believers in Jerusalem did three things in this story to get ready:

They figured out what kept them from feeling ready and set out to fix it;

they prayed;

and they put themselves in God’s hands.

You and I probably don’t need to organize ourselves in groups of twelve to do God’s work. The number twelve mattered profoundly to the disciples in Jerusalem two thousand years ago, because it represented the completeness of Israel, twelve tribes, and they knew they’d have felt unbalanced and incomplete at any other number. Naming a group of twelve helped them know God’s kingdom could be complete on earth, with the power of the Holy Spirit.

It’s not likely to be numbers that get in your way, or mine. We’re more likely to notice other things that make us imperfect witnesses to Jesus.

Some of us feel like we’re not good enough people, good enough examples; we make or have made too many mistakes, too many bad choices.

Some of us feel like we just don’t know enough.

Some of us feel like there’s something we need to do first, before we’re ready for the Spirit and for mission – take a class, lose ten pounds, give more (maybe make more money so you can give more), get rid of my doubts, organize my time so there’s enough of it, or my house so I can have people over; be healed; find inner peace….

or at least, have another cup of coffee.

Any of those sound familiar?

Jesus already knows this about you. And me. And us. And even so, Jesus sends the Holy Spirit to pour over us, and expects us to be witnesses to his truth and his resurrection in our neighborhoods and to the ends of the earth.  It may sound like a lot of work, butit’s a grand adventure. One you honestly don’t want to miss.

So we’ll just have to get ready.

Just like the disciples in Jerusalem:

Figure out what we can do about what’s in our way;

pray;

and put ourselves in God’s hands.

If you’re one of us that feels like you don’t know enough, that knowledge is getting in your way, well… read the Bible. You don’t have to read all of it before you’re ready. Even in seminary we don’t read the whole book of Numbers. There might be just one story that you need to know. But you do have to start reading.

And pray.

And put yourself in God’s hands.

If you’re one of us that feels like a bad example, like mistakes and bad choices will get in your way, well… seek forgiveness. Seek healing for the hurt within the bad example.

Or make one good choice. Just one.

And pray.
And put yourself in God’s hands.

If it’s something else that’s making you feel incomplete, unready, then fix it. You don’t have to fix all of it at once, and it may not need fixing the way you think. You can use your doubts instead of losing them. You can find time for one conversation or relationship without being any less busy or more organized. If you don’t know what to do about what’s in your way, talk to me.

Figure out the very first step. Take it.

And pray.

And put yourself in God’s hands.

Because you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

Jesus is sending the Holy Spirit upon us, ready or not.

We are going to be witnesses of Christ in our lives, whether we plan it or not.

So let’s get ready.