Acts 1:10-14

Chapter 3

Prayer

Almighty God, thou dost call us together that thou mayest bless us, and not that thou mayest pour upon us the wrath of thy judgment. When thou dost call men it is to a great wedding feast, yea, to gladness and ecstasy. When we obey thy call and come together to thine house, we find that thy banner over us is love, and that thy welcome is broader than our necessity. Thou art always working for those who have sinned against thee: thy mercy endureth for ever, thy love is a great sea that cannot be dried up: thy mercy and thy power combine to make one great sky, overarching the earth that has left thee in rude rebellion.

We have come to sing of thy mercy rather than of thy judgment: thy mercy is the angel of our life, it is the light of our eyes, it is our one continual comfort. We turn away from our sin and see thy mercy more brightly because of our guilt. What have we not seen of the Lord's compassion, how tender his heart, how continuous his love. We say with the house of Aaron and with all the houses of ancient time and of modern days, his mercy endureth for ever. Because thy compassions fail not, we are here this day, standing in the Sabbatic light and looking up with expectancy that shall not be disappointed, into the shining heavens. Do not all things come from above, are not all the gifts of God poured down upon us as from a summer sky? Continue thy goodness to us, Lord of the heavens, God of the earth and Father of all souls.

We bless thee that we can thus speak to thee in our mother tongue, with all the fulness and plainness of love, because of the revelation made concerning thee by Jesus Christ thy Son. We know thee because we know him, we love him because he first loved us, and to love him is to love God. For all his wondrous life we bless thee: without it our life would be a life in the night-time, all darkness and mystery. For his atoning death we adore thee, magnifying thy wisdom and thy grace because of this infinite answer to our transgression. We need the cross every day: some days we need the cross to save us from the pit that opens at our very feet: may we run to the cross, hide ourselves in the sanctuary of its sacrifice, abide within the circle of its glowing mystery, and there await the communications of heaven addressed to the soul by the Holy Ghost.

Thou hast given us a handful of days which we call our life, our breath is in our nostrils, and we live to die but in Christ we die to live, he is our live and our immortality, and because we are in him, rooted and grounded in his purpose of grace and mercy, we shall not be cast away.

Thou wilt continue to redeem us daily, until the whole work of Christ is completed in our life and we are beautiful with his beauty. Herein is our confidence, without this we have no rock to stand upon, but with this we are lifted up above all condemnation, and are set in the sanctuary that cannot be violated. Daily come to us with all thy needed love, continually stand by us, that our weakness may become our strength: and that out of the night of our sin we may see the stars of thy love and promise.

Every heart has its own tale to tell thee, of wonder, distress, loss, gain, joy and gladness. Hear thou the voices of individuals as well as the cry of our common delight, and our multitudinous supplication. Come to us according to our individual requirement; where there is great gloom bring thou back the light that has long fled. Where there is the shining of a great light all round about the life, speak thou the word that shall stay the soul against the time of darkness and storm. Where there is a burning desire to serve thee with both hands, with an entire heart and an unbroken will, this is the work of God the Holy Ghost, and thou wilt surely continue it unto the end: if thou wilt not quench the smoking flax, thou wilt not put out the burning light. Where there is indifference or hesitation, an unloving reluctance, a painful and godless wonder, the Lord come with the olden baptism, the one baptism of fire, the gift of the Holy Ghost, burn up wood and hay and stubble, and all refuse and alloys, and call the soul to the youthfulness of immortal love, and to the consecration of a homage unimpaired.

We commend unto thee the poor, the sad, the lonely, the stranger, the wanderer, the prodigal, our friends upon the sea, our loved ones in other lands, those who are appointed to die, the new born, the bride and the bridegroom, the man in business, in anxiety, in success. We commend unto thee all patient sufferers, all who are undergoing silent distresses, the penitent, the contrite, and the broken-hearted oh, thou whose great blue heaven surrounds us all, come nearer to us still with the circle of thy love as it is revealed and glorified in God the Son. Amen.

Act 1:10-14

10. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood [were standing] by them in white apparel;

11. Which also said, Ye men of Galilee [all the Apostles had come out of Galilee] why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner [ Zec 14:4 ] as ye have seen him go into heaven [ Dan 7:13 ].

12. Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet [where his agony took place], which is from Jerusalem a Sabbath day's journey [six furlongs].

13. And when they were come in [from the open country], they went up into an upper room, where abode [where there were abiding] both Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip, and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the son of Alphæus, and Simon Zelotes [called also Simon the Canaanite], and Judas the brother of James.

14. These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, with the women [Luke is the only Evangelist who names them], and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren [the last known fact in her life, and the last mention of the brethren].

The Upward Look

The action of the disciples was undoubtedly natural. There are some attitudes for which we cannot account and for which we think we need not account, because they express the uppermost emotion of the soul. Who knows how long the disciples would have looked upward steadfastly into heaven? Many of us now look up in that direction simply because we have seen our loved one ascend towards the fount of day. We think we are the better for looking, and so we are. No man surely can be worse for looking upward. This is God's old medicament for wounded hearts and bruised lives. Said he to ancient Israel, "Lift up thine eyes, and behold," and then he called attention to all the hosts of Heaven, and asked in effect, if that shining host had no meaning in it whether it did not symbolise and attest, in the most emphatic and gracious way, the power and wisdom of One unseen.

We cannot allow the best part of our life to be taken up without looking in the direction which it took in its flight. No man, clothed in what apparel he may be, can chidingly refer to our attitude. The heart will tell its own tale: under some circumstances the heart will have its own way; it is useless to tell the heart that no good can come of this or of that the heart finds good in unexpected places, and draws honey from flowers that have not been suspected as bearing honey, by any naturalist or herbalist. There are times when the heart must be left to itself, to find comfort where it can, to throw itself into such attitudes and postures as are inspired and dictated by supreme and uncontrollable feelings. Why should we hasten from the grave, why should we turn away from it as if we longed to see it no more? There is a time when sorrow becomes sweetness such is the mystery and such the graciousness of life, that loss turns itself into a source of gain, and men can say, without contradiction in reality, though not without contradiction in mere terms "When I am weak, then am I strong."

We think, when we look after the captive that perhaps we may see the Captor. Surely that explains all; by what threadlets is he lifted up? by what secret mechanism, by what subtle attraction, by what spiritual affinity what is this magnetism that draws him upward to a larger place? So we are kept on the alert, expecting that one day we will see the hand that steals the objects of our love and homage. How wonderfully that hand conceals itself! it is beside us and we see it not, it spreads our table and leaves no finger marks that the rude eyes of the flesh can see, it makes our bed in our affliction and yet there is no sign of anything superhuman. Yet what a wondrous feeling of the supernatural there is, and feeling is beyond language, taking up all words and using them so far as they can go, and then ascending above them, and leaving them behind like the dust of the feet.

While the disciples looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold two men stood by them in white apparel. Who were those men? There are so many anonymous influences in life there has always been a Man in this Holy Book, that would not give up his name he would be called Prophet, Angel, Messenger, even Voice, but the secret of his name he would not disclose. Now he gleamed like lightning, now he moved like a figure through the darkening air, a figure, yet without definite shape, a figure that was going to be a shape, and suddenly fell back from the form and troubled us with an outline for which we had no measure.

The Man is still in our life, he is the great Presence in our life, did we but know it well. We try so to vulgarise ourselves as to shut out the supernatural, yet ever and anon it breaks through all our arrangements, and troubles us like a sharp pain. But if willingly received, received with welcomes and expectations, he troubles us indeed, but with a great gladness. Sometimes there is pain even in joy, sometimes there is agony in love, sometimes our delight rises into speechless rapture. Do not give yourselves up to atheistic loneliness; expect this Presence, always clothed in white apparel. Why this whiteness? Why this scorn of colour? Why this infinite and ineffable simplicity? What are these arrayed in white robes, and whence came they? The young angel in the tomb was clothed in white; the men that spake to Jesus on the mountain were clothed with white, with raiment so white that no fuller on earth could touch by imitation the dazzling snow. It is not scorn of colour, for white is all colours in one; white is the emblem of light; the emblem of purity, the symbol of Divinity. Who were they were they Moses and Elias? Had they been hovering about ever since they had been on the mountain, when they spoke of the decessus he should accomplish at Jerusalem? Such questions may have no answers which we can supply, yet the very putting of a great question may itself be a religious exercise. Let us understand this matter of interrogation; it is not needful to have an answer always; a question may be so put as to be its own best reply. When we are therefore charged not to be wise above what is written, and not to ask questions, we must accept the exhortation within given limits. If we insist upon answers in words, then is our question asking a temptation and a snare; but if we ask great speculative questions so as to stir the soul's wonder and evoke the soul's prayer, to heighten the sky, and widen the horizon, and then say, "What we know not now we shall know hereafter," speculation becomes one of the highest exercises of the religious life. Encourage that kind of speculation, only see that it does not hurry you into impatience, and into that aggravated state of soul which expects replies in words. Always would I have some great question standing in front of me, luring me onward and so continuing my education. At the same time, in proportion as the question is great, poignant and urgent, would I pray to be enabled to ask it in the spirit that expects no verbal reply.

What said the two men clothed in white apparel? "Ye men of Galilee" that term, once a term of reproach, now becomes, through their utterance of it, the beginning of one of the highest social honours. Names that have been spat upon by the world's contempt and scorn shall be lifted up into symbols of glory and honour. The speaker glorifies the words he uses: in one man's mouth the word that would be the sign of vulgarity becomes in another man's mouth an instrument of refinement and education. The speaker should be above his language, and the speaker's sincerity should be as a furnace that purifies all that is cast into it and preserves the Hidden gold.

Thus addressed, the speech continued "Why stand ye gazing up into heaven?" It was not a rebuke; it was a call from enfeebling reverie, but it was not a rebuke of the attitude which was then most rationally and naturally assumed. But our attitudes do puzzle the angels and the white-clad ones that come from heaven to look into our ways of doing things. We are continual perplexities to our celestial and other-world visitants. When the poor sorrow-laden women went to the grave, the young man clothed in white raiment said, "Why seek ye the living among the dead?" So, when the disciples are looking up steadfastly towards heaven, the voices combine to say, "Why stand ye gazing up into heaven?"

This why has stirred us from the very beginning of human history. Collect from the Bible all the questions that begin with the word Why, and you will be surprised at their number and their variety. Sometimes God says, " Why will you be stricken any more?" Often and often he says, " Why will ye die?" Again and again, with remonstrance of wisdom, he says, " Why spend money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not?" How we do perplex the better world! the angels will not allow us to look downward, nor will they allow us to look upward too long in either case. The angel at the tomb did not drive away the women: having asked them why they sought the living among the dead, and having told them that Christ was not there, the angel said, "Come, see the place where the Lord lay." Gentle word! sympathetic speech for angels to make to brokenhearted ones; they catch us in the right mood, they know exactly what to say. He was an angel, or how could he have said, "Come see the place where the Lord lay?" He was a man-angel, a human-heart angel, who knew that looking at an empty place might sometimes be equal to going to God's church.

Why look at the empty chair? Why look at the little dresses that never more can be worn by the one for whom they were made? Why visit the scenes that have been made heroic by noble valour and sacred endurance? Why climb the pulpit of the famous preacher? Why look into the rooms once inhabited by great historical personages? What is the meaning of all this? The angel says to us, "Why do you spend your time so? Bethink ye. Yet, now that you are here, come, see the place, and out of emptiness get fulness. Because the grave is empty let your heart be filled with sacred delight."

The women were thus taught not to look too long into the empty grave, and the men were taught not to look too long into the vacant space that was between them and the heavens. What were they then to do? In both cases to take the middle line. Men must live on averages. You cannot be living at the extreme point of melancholy, or the extreme point of ecstasy: you must come to the middle line and work along the so-called commonplaces of history. Life is not a dazzling romance; life is not one continual funeral; nor is it one continual wedding-feast; life is made up of ordinary duties, average occupation, faithful, diligent continuance in the vocation wherewith we are called, and we have to establish our life in patience and in well-doing, rather than to glorify it by ecstasies which perish because of their very violence.

Is contemplation then forbidden in the church? No. Reverie is; monastic seclusion is; idolatry of place is forbidden, and irrational expectation is interdicted, but the soul must have its times of looking into graves and looking into skies and looking very widely about itself, for in such looking is the beginning of strength. If you go to the grave to aggravate your atheism you will find no angel there. If you look up into the heavens and think that life is to be a daily evaporation and sighing, then are you misspending your opportunities, and letting the whole sphere of service fall into decay and ruin.

But to be turned away from the grave! yes, but the women were not turned away from the tomb, they were invited to look into it. And the men were not turned away from the heavens, they were enriched with a great promise "this same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven shall come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." Pause long at the words "This same Jesus." Our fear has been that we should one day see some other Christ. I with you, want to see the Christ of Bethlehem and Nazareth, and Galilee, and Jerusalem, and Gethsemane, and the Cross, and Olivet. We have read of him as being "the same yesterday, today and for ever." We often wish that we could have seen him in his humiliation. In some way God will preserve the identity of Christ, and we shall see that same Jesus that came to save the world. Who wants to see the glorified Christ alone? so transfigured and so to say so deified that his own original disciples would not know him? There must be the reality of identity; we must so see him as to be able to say at once, without indication from any other quarter, " That is Christ and none other

How obedient the men were to the heavenly vision. There are times when we are just little children in the hands of God, without question-asking or murmuring or complaining. The men returned to Jerusalem, they were wrought up into a mood of docility, self-renunciation, and utter, simple waiting upon God. We know that we are growing in grace, when we know that we are growing in the spirit of obedience. They would go or stand, or look or return as they were bidden. We have lost that sweet simplicity; we have now become cunning in argument, learned in controversy, skilful in the suggestion of difficulties, and the simplicity of childlike obedience has been lost from our heart. Would that we could open God's book and read it straight off without any questioning or unbelief! Would that we could take the psalms and read them as if they belonged to us. How much richer we would be, and quieter, and stronger.

To what did the men return? When they were come in they went up into an upper room. In ancient Madrid the rule was that, except there was a special stipulation to the contrary, the upper rooms of all houses belonged to the king. Ideally the notion is full of beauty. However humble your house, if it had been built under the common law of Spain, the upper chambers were royal possessions. Is there any chamber in our house that belongs to the King? Do we keep a chair which He will turn into a Throne by sitting in it? Do we keep one crust which he may turn into a feast by breaking it? Have we one vessel filled with water which he will fill with wine by smiling upon it? Is there anything in all the house that is peculiarly and inalienably the King's? We might make the whole house his: so all-claiming is his love that he would take it, and what he takes he returns as his kind earth does; the kind, yet voracious earth takes our handful of seed, but returns it in golden harvest.

So the men gathered in that upper room and their names are given, not in the old order, but with some confusion of consecutiveness. What of that? It was a grand thing to break up mechanism at the very first; to read the list either backward or forward, or beginning at the middle and going either way for are we not all called to a common brotherhood in Christ, and are not the last first and the first last, and is not the middle name the most glorious of all? And what is the difference between us when we are judged and valued by the redeeming grace of God? Presently the disciples will try to make a little order in the Church, and they will be punished for it. We have but to turn over the page, and the disciples before the Pentecost will make wise fools of themselves. We love to mechanise, to build little sand houses, which the first wave will swash down and mingle with the common shore. It is better that we should have the order of spontaneity, and that any man should be able to write the list blindfold, and to put the names down as they occur to him. Who cares where his name is, provided it be in the list? Is my name here? I ask not where, but here, on the record, in the Lamb's Book of Life? I ask not whether on the first page or the last is it in the book? If so, it is enough.

These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication all life running up into one grand cry unto God. You cannot pray to order: you may appoint your times for prayer and endeavour to keep those times, but sometimes we in breaking our appointment with God best keep it. We cannot always pray as we can pray sometimes. There are days of prayer; harvests of prayer; hours that we could spend, and count them all too short, in the eloquence of loving communion with God. At other times we are speechless in his presence, the heart is dumb, there is no cry in the spirit, and what we have to learn is this, that our speechlessness is oftentimes more eloquent than our speech.

And the women were there, all named together not only the women, but the Woman and Mary, the mother of Jesus one last little line to herself. We hear nothing more about her that is authentic: legend and tradition have their foolish tales to tell about her, but this is the end, so far as the Scriptures are concerned "And Mary, the mother of Jesus." Do not complicate that simplicity, add nothing to that completeness. She was there, not officially, not presidentially she was there as one of the women whose eyes were as the pools of Heshbon.

There was the little society, doing nothing but praying and when a church does nothing but pray it begins to do the mightiest of all works. I do not say uttering prayerful words and sentences, but PRAYING when it prays with the heart, with the violence of love, yet with the patience of confidence, when it gives itself in unbroken stress towards the heavens, then no angel ever says, "Why speak ye thus steadfastly up to heaven?" The looking was turned aside, but not the praying, the looking after the vanished figure, but not the praying to the presiding Intercessor. We may look too long after that which we think our eyes can descry, but when it comes to speaking heavenward, sending the soul skyward, bidding the heart go on its own messages and knock at heaven's door, then no men clothed in white apparel say, "Why speak ye so long?" but all heaven says, every angel says, the church of the first-born in heaven says, "PRAY without ceasing."