As the aeroplane came to a standstill at the end of a recent flight, a young 4-year-old in the seat with his parents behind me, was heard to gleefully cry out, “we’ve survived”.
While his outburst brought amusement of those of us close by, I couldn’t help but recall the times when mum and dad took us kids for a drive to park at the end of the city aerodrome runway, to watch the aeroplanes taking off over our heads. I found it exciting seeing the planes disappear into the distant sky.
I can imagine a similar situation occurring when Jesus made his departure from this earth into the heavens above. His disciples were probably left dumbfounded looking up into the sky as He disappeared from view.
I wonder what was going through their minds when realisation dawned and they found themselves without their leader? How would they survive? Jesus had foreshadowed this reaction and instructed them to wait together for the coming of the Holy Spirit. While Jesus had prepared them for the task of taking His message to the world, they would have been unsure about how they should go about fulfilling this responsibility.
We are very much like those first disciples. We know and believe in Jesus, but often we are uncertain what our role as Christians should be. We too, find we can stare open-mouthed up at the heavens wondering how we might be expected to take the ‘Good News’ to others.
Only a few would see themselves publicly proclaiming the Gospel to strangers and like most Australians, we tend to shy away from discussing politics or religion when in a group. We need to realise we all have different God-given skills and talents that make us unique.
Let us ask the Holy Spirit, who infused the first disciples with enthusiasm, to help us accept our responsibility as Christians in whatever way our God wants of us. Scripture tells us we need to ‘love one another’ and ‘others will know we are Christians by our love’. Maybe our role could be as simple as that.
While others might stand around, looking to the heavens for inspiration, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we can realise our responsibility and get about being the person we were created to be in doing the Will of The Father.
I’m Peter Mack and that’s faith.