Seventh Sunday of Easter

Devotional

Day 1: Staring at Empty Sky

The disciples stood slack-jawed, sandals rooted to Olivet’s slope as Jesus vanished. Two angels broke their skyward gaze: “Why stand here looking up?” No answer came – only the echo of Christ’s final promise. They walked back to Jerusalem, their sandals kicking up dust where feet once walked on air. Pentecost’s fire was still ten days away. [24:59]

Jesus’ absence became their new normal. The cloud didn’t return. No voice boomed directions. Yet the angels’ question reframed their waiting: not passive staring, but active preparation. Heaven’s king had work for them on earth.

When your prayers hit the ceiling, when God feels distant, remember the disciples’ dusty sandals. What broken place needs your hands while you wait for heaven’s answer? Where is your Jerusalem today – the ordinary space where Christ calls you to labor as you long? What practical step can you take this week while waiting for clarity?

“After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. ‘Men of Galilee,’ they said, ‘why do you stand here looking into the sky?’”
(Acts 1:9-11, ESV)

Prayer: Ask God to reveal one concrete task He has for you in this season of waiting.
Challenge: Write down three people needing companionship; text one before sunset.

Day 2: Certain Women in the Upper Room

Mary Magdalene unrolled her sleeping mat beside the other Mary. Salome lit the Sabbath lamps. For the third day, 120 believers crowded the upper room – not debating end times, but praying. These women knew the drill: they’d waited through crucifixion’s darkness, burial’s silence, resurrection’s slow dawning. Now they waited again, together. [26:44]

The “certain women” became living memory-keepers. Their presence reminded Peter of empty tombs, John of forgiven failures. While men debated timelines, women baked bread and washed feet. Their waiting wasn’t idle – it nourished community.

Who are the “certain women” in your life – those who keep showing up when answers don’t? What ordinary acts of service (meals, laundry, silent presence) could steady someone’s shaky faith this week? When have simple routines sustained you more than dramatic miracles?

“They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.”
(Acts 1:14, ESV)

Prayer: Thank God for someone who waited faithfully with you during a past crisis.
Challenge: Invite a friend to pray with you this week – in person, by phone, or text.

Day 3: Could You Not Stay Awake?

Olive leaves crunched under Jesus’ pacing feet. He woke snoring disciples twice. “Stay awake with me” – not for strategy talks, but shared vigil. The sword-pierced heart wanted company, not solutions. Yet when crisis hit, they fled. Only the women stayed awake – at the cross, the tomb, the upper room. [23:25]

Jesus still seeks companions, not fixers. His Gethsemane prayer sanctifies our restless nights, our hospital vigils, our anxious predawn hours. Presence matters more than productivity in darkness.

Whose midnight watch have you abandoned because you felt useless? What unresolved situation tempts you to “fix it or forget it” rather than keep faithful company? Where is God calling you to simply stay – awake, present, prayerful?

“Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. ‘Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?’ he asked Peter.”
(Matthew 26:40, ESV)

Prayer: Confess times you’ve prioritized solutions over sitting with someone in pain.
Challenge: Set a 3:00 PM phone alarm labeled “Pray with Jesus” – pause for 60 seconds.

Day 4: Prayed For Before the Storm

Sweat dried on Jesus’ forehead as he prayed for you. Not generic “future believers,” but you – your doubts, your waiting seasons, your unraveled relationships. Hours before spikes tore his wrists, he interceded for your unity with other believers. His final act? Binding wounds through prayer. [28:24]

This High Priest still prays. When you’re too exhausted to form words, when waiting erodes your faith, your name rests in his scarred hands. His intercession sustains more than your effort ever could.

What burden have you been carrying alone that Jesus already lifted in prayer? How might trusting his ongoing intercession change how you wait this week? When will you pause to receive – not achieve – spiritual strength today?

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.”
(John 17:20-21, ESV)

Prayer: Ask Jesus to show you one way He’s praying for you right now.
Challenge: Write “He’s praying” on your mirror; read it each morning this week.

Day 5: Laughter at the Tent Door

Sarah snorted when angels promised a son. Ninety years old, she hid behind tent flaps – but God heard. Her cynical chuckle became Isaac’s baby coos. The wait birthed more than a child; it forged a people. Yet in the ache between promise and fulfillment, even matriarchs doubted. [31:16]

God specializes in impossible timelines. Sarah’s story reminds us: delayed answers don’t mean denied promises. Laughter – bitter or joyful – doesn’t scare away the Spirit. Honest doubt fuels deeper faith when brought into community.

What long-unanswered prayer makes you want to laugh bitterly? How might sharing that struggle (like Sarah’s tent confession) invite others to carry hope for you? Where is God nurturing patience beneath your frustration?

“Then one of them said, ‘I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.’ Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, ‘After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?’”
(Genesis 18:10-12, ESV)

Prayer: Bring your most “impossible” request to God again – with raw honesty.
Challenge: Share one long-held hope with a trusted friend this week; ask them to pray.

Sermon Summary

Ascension names both loss and promise at the same time. Acts shows the disciples asking for a timeline, and Jesus giving a promise: "You don’t get certainty. You get presence, and eventually, you will get power through the Holy Spirit." The cloud then takes him from their sight, and the disciples are left staring into absence until the two in white interrupt and say, in effect, stop sky-gazing and do something. The upper room then becomes the place of faithful waiting, not because answers are in hand, but because companionship and prayer are.

The upper room gathers not only the eleven but "certain women," including Mary the mother of Jesus, and likely Mary Magdalene. Those women have already stayed at the cross and waited at the tomb. Their history teaches that "the bad thing is never the last thing," and that resurrection rarely runs on anyone’s timetable. Their staying power becomes the template for the church in between Ascension and Pentecost: devotion to prayer and to one another in the unresolved middle.

John 17 opens Jesus’ heart at another threshold. On the night before his crucifixion, Jesus prays for himself, for his disciples, and for future believers. The prayer is intimate, urgent, relational. In a moment when followers want a strategic plan, Jesus gives them relationship and intercession. Belonging comes before believing. Presence is set over certainty. Love holds when clarity does not.

A story about waiting through a loved one’s surgery names how waiting feels unproductive, uncomfortable, and vulnerable. But that very waiting becomes a place where companionship steadies and prayer oxygenates. The hard stretch does not expose a God who tests, but a God who meets creatures in hard places. God is present in unresolved spaces. Scripture keeps saying this: Abraham and Sarah wait a lifetime; Israel waits forty years; Mary waits to give birth; the church is born out of faithful waiting, not certainty.

The call lands here: the church becomes a people who can keep vigil together. Many wait alone for healing, peace, justice, stability, but the body of Christ can hold one another through uncertainty. The practice is simple and costly: resist distraction, resist spiraling, stay present, turn to prayer, offer companionship. The Spirit often begins this way, not in spectacle but in quiet company, not in answers but in faithful presence.

Key Takeaways

1. Presence over certainty anchors hope [24:23] Presence does not erase ambiguity, but it keeps disciples from being ruled by it. Jesus answers the demand for timelines with a promise of himself and the Spirit. Hope stands not on control but on companionship that does not leave. That is enough light to obey before understanding fully. [24:23]
2. Waiting is where God shows up [27:28] Waiting feels like failure because it refuses quick fixes, yet it becomes the place where God’s fidelity is learned in the bones. The in-between trains attention to the God who moves at a different speed. Those who stay learn that resurrection is real, even when clocks disagree. Holy delay enlarges trust, not just patience. [27:28]
3. Prayer and companionship hold the line [28:43] When plans collapse, relationship is the strategy. Prayer keeps hearts open to God’s action, and companionship keeps courage from thinning out. Neither removes pain, but together they make endurance possible without cynicism. This is how a community becomes strong without becoming hard. [28:43]
4. Faithful women teach holy patience [26:22] The women who stayed at the cross and returned to the tomb model staying power without spectacle. Their presence says the worst thing is never the last thing, and timing belongs to God. Their witness dignifies unseen labor as essential to resurrection hope. In their quiet constancy, the church learns how to wait well. [26:22]
5. Waiting becomes the soil of transformation [30:59] Unresolved space is not empty space. God often uses that soil to sprout new obedience, unexpected courage, and deeper love. The church itself was born this way, out of vigil and prayer rather than certainty. Transformation ripens in the slow fields most people try to skip. [30:59]

Youtube Chapters

[00:00] - Welcome
[10:23] - Opening Collect and Ascension week
[21:00] - Story of waiting through surgery
[22:59] - Naming everyday kinds of waiting
[23:25] - Gethsemane and the plea to watch
[24:05] - Is this the time
[24:23] - Presence over certainty, Spirit promised
[24:59] - Angels interrupt sky-gazing
[26:01] - Upper room and devoted prayer
[26:22] - The certain women present
[27:06] - The bad thing is not last
[28:24] - Jesus’ final prayer for his own
[29:27] - Companionship when it feels like too much
[30:59] - Waiting is not wasted time
[31:54] - A community that keeps vigil
[33:21] - Back to the upper room ending

Bible Study Guide

Bible Reading
Acts 1:9-11 (ESV)
"And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, 'Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.'"

John 17:20-23 (ESV)
"I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me."

Acts 1:14 (ESV)
"All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers."

Observation Questions

In Acts 1:9-11, how do the disciples respond after Jesus ascends, and what do the two men in white robes instruct them to do?
What specific groups of people are mentioned as gathering in the upper room in Acts 1:14, and what actions characterize their time there?
According to John 17:20-23, what does Jesus emphasize as central to his final prayer for future believers?
The sermon describes waiting as a recurring theme in Scripture (e.g., Abraham, Israel, Mary). What examples of waiting were highlighted in the sermon? [30:59]

Interpretation Questions

Why might Jesus’ response to the disciples’ question about timelines (Acts 1:7-8) focus on presence and the Spirit rather than giving them certainty?
How does the inclusion of the women in Acts 1:14 (like Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus) shape our understanding of faithful waiting and community?
In John 17, Jesus prays for unity among believers. How does this prayer address the tension between human desire for clarity and God’s emphasis on relational faithfulness?
The sermon says, “The bad thing is never the last thing.” How do the women at the cross and tomb (and later in the upper room) embody this truth? [27:06]

Application Questions

Where in your life are you currently experiencing a season of “unresolved middle” (waiting for healing, answers, or change)? How could companionship or prayer steady you in this time? [21:00]
The angels told the disciples to stop staring at the sky and act. What distractions or “sky-gazing” habits might you need to interrupt to focus on faithful action in your current circumstances?
Think of someone in your life who is waiting alone (for healing, peace, etc.). What practical step could you take this week to offer them companionship or prayer?
The sermon says, “Belonging comes before believing.” How can your small group create space for people to experience belonging even when they lack certainty or clarity? [28:43]
The women in the upper room had a history of staying faithful in hard places. Who in your life has modeled “holy patience” for you, and how can you honor their example? [26:22]
When have you felt pressured to “fix” a situation instead of waiting with prayer and trust? What would it look like to prioritize presence over productivity in that scenario?

Sermon Clips

55s

“But just before he disappears from their sight, the disciples asked him, is this the time? Is this when you will restore the kingdom? And Jesus replied saying, you don't get certainty. You get presence, and eventually, you will get power through the holy spirit. They want a timeline, and Jesus gives them a promise. They want clarity. Jesus gives them companionship. This is the last thing he says, and then he is gone from their sight. The disciples are left standing there staring upward into absence.”

53s

“These certain women, who were they? What did they bring with them into that room? I imagine it included Mary Magdalene and Mary, Jesus' mother, and perhaps others. These were the women who stayed at the cross. These were the women who waited at the tomb. Maybe that's why they are still here in the upper room. They already know that the bad thing is never the last thing, and they know resurrection rarely arrives on our timetable. These were the women who already knew how to remain faithful in uncertainty.”

49s

“Waiting in those hard places often feels like failure or at least a waste of time, especially when it all feels like too much. If something is broken, we want to fix it. If something is uncertain, we want it solved. If grief lingers too long, our culture says to move on. When faced with uncertainty, God meets us there with relationship and prayer and love. If you take one thing from this sermon today, I hope it is this. God is present in unresolved spaces.”

54s

“God is present in unresolved spaces. We see this over and over in scripture. We see that waiting is not wasted time. In fact, it is often where transformation begins. Think back to the old testament. Abraham and Sarah waited like a hundred years to have a baby, And the Israelites waited forty years in the desert. And Mary waited to give birth to Jesus. And in this upper room, Jesus' followers wait for what comes next. And the church itself was born out of faithful waiting, not certainty.”

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