“But you will possess power when the Holy Spirit has come to you” (Acts 1:8a).
Power, Jesus promises them. I’m leaving, but I am going to give to you power.
What did they expect, do you think? This ragtag group mixed with people who had very little if any power. What were they thinking when Jesus told them this and then, in a twinkling of an eye, disappeared from their sight?
Did they think of Elisha, Elijah’s acolyte who received a double portion of the prophet’s powers? And what powers they were: to stop up the rains, to outrun chariots, to bless jars of oil and meal that would never, ever run out even in famine.
Maybe they thought of Gideon and David, men who faced incredible odds in battle. Men who, imbued with power, were able to defeat the enemies of their people, to stand as heroes after the dust had settled.
Could it be the power that held back the Jordan when the Children of Israel passed into the Promised Land, or caused the walls of Jericho to come tumbling down into rubble?
I wonder if, locked in their room, they fantasized about it. Was this power going to give them strength, abilities that could overcome those who wanted them dead? Would they call down fire, turn the day to darkness, make the sun stand still in the sky?
The Spirit came upon them, the Spirit of Christ, the Divine Breath that goes where it will. And, as promised, they received power. But it was power unlike any of them expected. And it was more powerful than they’d imagined.
When the Spirit came, they spoke. They spoke in a way that everyone understood. Their words cut through confusion and preconceived notions. They opened their lips and people paid attention not to who they were but to what they said.
Imagine, no one thought about where the Disciples were from, what they did for a living. They didn’t ask who they voted for or to which party they belonged. They didn’t even ask where these fellows got their news.
This Spirit had given them something remarkable. Not the ability to split rivers into dry land or to walk on water or bring water gushing from a rock. No, it was greater than those things. It was the power to communicate and to be understood.
Peter stands up and begins speaking to the crowd of people. Philip tells the Ethiopian eunuch about Jesus, using Isaiah. Paul, who had not understood, travels the ancient world helping others understand what it means to follow the Way.
Of course there were miracles of healing and prison escapes, but those were all a part of the message. They weren’t acts in and of themselves. They were a means to help others understand, to help cut through the prejudice and polarization, the alignments and alliances. Those acts served the true power they possessed: to be understood by those as different from one another as day from night, left to right, red to blue.
Can you imagine what might happen if we possessed that power today?
Wild Spirit, fill me, open my heart to take you inside; so, the words I speak might be heard in any tongue. And I might encourage those I meet to love one another as you have loved them.