Seventh Sunday of Easter, May 21, 2023 – Acts 1:12-14; 1 Peter 4:13-16; John 17:1-11A

I think almost everybody knows the famous song from the Broadway play, The Fantasticks, Try to Remember. But there’s another song, that’s not so famous, from the same musical. It begins like this, “Soon it’s gonna rain. I can feel it. Soon it’s gonna rain. I can tell. Soon it’s gonna rain. I can feel it.” It’s only four notes, until you get to the first break. And it’s just one chord, until you get to the first break. It just kind of sits there and it makes you wonder what’s gonna happen next. And it reminds me of what it was like to see a summer thunderstorm up in Wurtsboro Hills when we were kids. Sometimes, on a completely clear day, all of a sudden, the sun would go away to be replaced by gathering clouds. And everything would get very, very still. And all of a sudden, there would be a tremendous crack of lightening and a tremendous boom of thunder. The storm would begin to rage. But that little in-between time was so fascinating, when everything, for just a moment, was almost unnaturally still.

I am sure that all of us have had, in our lives, these sort of what next moments. You’ve attended the funeral of a dear loved one and everybody is walking away from the gravesite, back to their cars. And some little, tiny voice inside your grieving head says, “What now? What next?” You empty out your locker on the last day of senior year and take your lock home with you, finally. Although you’re looking forward to the ceremonies of graduation and the parties that come afterward, some little voice says, “What next?” You decide to retire and comes the happy day, with the office party and the gold watch, and you take your belongings out of the desk drawer and put them in a box. You tuck the box under your arm and head for the elevator and you say, “Now, what next?” You sold your house. You’re moving away to someplace that you like better, to a house you’ve already seen and you like. You turn the key in the lock one last time and hand it to the real estate agent or to the new owners. Something says, “What next?” You leave the doctor’s office after a serious diagnosis, and the doctor says, “Well, we’ll run some more tests.” And as you walk back to your car you say, “What next?”

That’s why I asked you to listen carefully to the people who were in the upper room in today’s story from the Book of Acts. It’s the eleven apostles - and, just in case you forgot their names from the Gospel of Luke, Luke tells us the names again, just so we won’t forget who they are - and some women and Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Those eleven apostles, just before this passage in the Book of Acts, had stood watching their beloved Jesus disappear from them into the heavens. And, just before He went, they asked Him the most disheartening question. They said,” Are you going to restore the rule to Israel now?” After all they had been through. After the horror of the crucifixion and the joy of the resurrection and meeting Him resurrected, they still had their minds focused on political freedom instead of something bigger and wider than that. And so, these people gathered in the upper room don’t know what’s next because Jesus had sidestepped their question and said to them, “Go back to Jerusalem and stay there, and you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes. And you will be My witnesses.”  Almost the same thing that happens in St. Matthew’s gospel on a mountain far away from Jerusalem, when Jesus says to His disciples, just before leaving, “All power in heaven and earth has been given to Me, therefore you go and make disciples.” “So, what next,” say the eleven. What next? 

And those women. Who are they? Some of them are likely to be the wives of those eleven men.  Some of them were standing on a mountain across the way from the Mount of Olivet during the crucifixion, watching and wondering, “What’s next?” One or two of them got to see Jesus the morning He rose. But He didn’t speak to them about themselves and comfort them. He said, “Go tell my apostles to meet me in Galilee.” Dismissive.

Equally dismissive to Mary Magdalene, who certainly was in that group in the upper room. She threw herself at Jesus’ feet when she saw Him in the Garden and He called her by name. He stepped back and He said, “Don’t touch me. I haven’t yet gone back to my Father in Heaven. Don’t touch me.” Off putting. And Mary Magdalene wonders, “What’s next?”

And Mary, the Mother of Jesus. I call her “Mary, of the long goodbye.” The first time she said goodbye to her son was when people started to come to see this infant, filled with wild tales of angels and stars. Then when she brought him to be serviced in the Jerusalem temple, she was basically accosted by Simeon and then, Anna, with tales of a troublesome future for her child. Then, the weekend that she and Joseph lost Him in the big city, were panic stricken and brokenhearted, and then were dismissed by their Son when they found him. And when she went to see him while he was on tour, like any other superstar, and she couldn’t even get a ticket. “Mary, of the long goodbye.” And what does Luke say they’re doing there? They’re praying. They’re praying because they don’t know what to do now, because they don’t know what’s next. All of their expectations have been destroyed. And all of their hopes have been set aside. And so, what’s next? Because we all know what’s coming next, but they don’t.

All of us have had those what next moments when, for a brief pause, our lives are empty. At that moment, we have two choices. We can fill it, that emptiness, with stuff. With anger, resentment, and yearning and self-pity and divisiveness. Or we can fill it with prayer. Each of us was given the gift of the Holy Spirit at our Baptism. Again, at our Confirmation. Each time when we receive Holy Communion, we receive that same Spirit. And, even if we are not such good Catholics, unless we turn away from God with our whole heart and soul, the Spirit continues to be there, filling those what next moments. Not with dull surprise, but with joyful expectation.

The Spirit whispers to us just like the song, “Soon. Soon. Soon.”