Dreams Deferred, Hopes Realized

Have you ever gotten hooked on a TV series, perhaps Season One of a show, only to be left hanging at the end of the last episode, longing for more, waiting with bated breath for Season Two to begin?

Mark and I just finished Season One of “Alaska Daily”, a show about young indigenous women who went missing in a local Alaskan town and the small newspaper staff who endeavored to unearth details and provide clues to their disappearances. What the reporters began to uncover was very uncomfortable for government officials and law enforcement as they began to expose the disparities between the financial resources utilized in the searches for indigenous women and those used in the searches for white women. The show also wove other themes to keep the audience drawn in: hints of romance between one female reporter and two strikingly different males; tensions between competitive reporters working on the same story, and intrigue over the “Who Dun-nit” characters in the script.

Instead of “To Be Continued..” the network announced that there would be no Season Two. It was so disappointing because so many of the plots were left hanging and unfinished. Season One’s mike dropped and no one picked it back up.

Doesn’t life in our world seem like that? The crisis of the 2020 pandemic disrupted our lives and shifted our thinking and approaches to daily life in profound ways. The big question was and still seems to be, “Where do we go from here?”

I remember two years ago, attending a workshop on how church leaders could seize the opportunity to shift and adapt amid the huge challenges facing their faith communities. In 2020 my 100-year-old father-in-law coined the phrase, “Stand apart but pull together!” and a friend of ours wrote that phrase on the side of one of his business’s cargo shipments at the time. Our church had been doing some things online for almost a full year at the time. I remember sitting next to one of my favorite colleagues, being hopeful about ways we could make the shift, and I scribbled a note on my yellow pad: “Really looking forward to working with you.” He smiled back in agreement. Two months later I stepped away from my position amid painful relational dynamics. Hopes and dreams for fruitful ministry came crashing down. The grief and sadness of that sudden shift catapulted me on a two-year journey I didn’t expect or wish for. It was confusing and disorienting and has taken many months of tearful internal work to trust again in the good work of God. I am slowly healing and learning the importance of this season.

That leads me to some thoughts during this Eastertide season we are in. I’ve been reflecting on a small passage in Acts 1:1-11. If I had to give this chapter a title, it would be, “To Be Continued….” Here are a few of the verses: “After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them his command: ‘Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’” (vv. 3-5) With that baptism would come the empowerment to give witness to Jesus and his overwhelming love and presence.

That’s it; that’s pretty much all we know from those forty days after Jesus rose from the dead. We’re kind of left hanging, aren’t we? We already binge-watched Season One of Holy Week. But now there’s very little information on the subsequent plot. We know he appeared to the disciples behind locked doors. We rejoice in the beautiful restoration of Peter in John 21. What do you imagine Jesus did with His time? From those few verses in Acts, I surmise that Jesus gave His healing  presence to everyone He met. We know there were healings, miracles, and great teaching. Maybe He reiterated “I told you so!” with a big smile on His face, for we have many scriptural references in which He foretold what would happen to him before he went to the cross. We know that Peter preached one of his most powerful sermons in Acts 2 after the Spirit came upon him, and he referenced David’s utter trust in the Lord as found in Psalm 16: “I saw the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest in hope, because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, you will not let your holy one see decay. You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence.”

So that’s where I’ve been trying to inhabit space in these unknowing days, in the presence of Jesus, who holds His story for my restoration and purpose better than I ever will. We’re living in the “in-between times” in the kingdom of God, celebrating the resurrected life of Jesus and the empowering life His Spirit brings to us who believe, all the while waiting for His return when He will fully restore us and this earth; Season Two, if you will. I don’t understand all the details of this unfolding mystery, but I do know He wants to make all things new, including forming new hearts in us. As we wait in hope and reflect on that final glory, I’m grateful that He speaks this over our hearts, “To Be Continued”….

Richard Rohr puts it this way, “The experience of the Spirit is an undeserved, unmerited beginning, a new whole greater than the sum of all the parts. He draws us out and beyond ourselves in spite of ourselves. It is radical grace. To walk in the Spirit is to allow yourself to be grabbed by God and taken into a much larger world of meaning.”

During this Eastertide, I hope you are holding on to the presence of Jesus and leaning into the ways He longs to draw you lovingly into His story. Because you are His beloved, He wants to reveal the ongoing script of Season Two. Stay tuned….