Happy New Year! If you are like me, you have spent some time yesterday and today looking back at the last year, as well as looking forward at what the new year will bring. We look back and try to understand our last year – sometimes with mixed feelings of the good and bad, the things we are thankful for and the things we regret, the things that brought joy and the things that were difficult.
In the first chapter of Acts, we see the disciples at a similar point in their lives. A chapter is coming to an end and a new chapter is beginning. They have just spent 40 days with the resurrected Christ, listening and learning from Him, gaining understanding on what His life was about, why He had to die and about what was to come. Now He is leaving them and they are caught between “straining to see him” and anticipating what He said He would be sending to them.
In my first book I told you, Theophilus, about everything Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up to heaven after giving his chosen apostles further instructions through the Holy Spirit. During the forty days after his crucifixion, he appeared to the apostles from time to time, and he proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive. And he talked to them about the Kingdom of God.
Once when he was eating with them, he commanded them, “Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised, as I told you before. John baptized with water, but in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
So when the apostles were with Jesus, they kept asking him, “Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom?”
He replied, “The Father alone has the authority to set those dates and times, and they are not for you to know. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
After saying this, he was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see him. As they strained to see him rising into heaven, two white-robed men suddenly stood among them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why are you standing here staring into heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but someday he will return from heaven in the same way you saw him go!”
Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, a distance of half a mile. When they arrived, they went to the upstairs room of the house where they were staying. – Acts 1:1-13
In the midst of the celebrations and parties today, I pray each of us is able to take some time to look back and look forward. Let’s look back at all God has taught us in 2012, all the wonderful times mixed with all of the hard times. He has been faithful and He has been present. The evidence of His presence can be seen in a glance but, when we take the time to “strain to see him,” we recognize His hands and feet in even more ways than we initially remembered.
Then let’s look forward in anticipation of what 2013 will hold for us. God has promises for each of us for the coming year. “John baptized with water, but in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” In the same way that He spoke to His disciples, Jesus is speaking to us – this is what you look back and realize…and this is what is coming. Here are the wonderful things I have done for you, but in a few days…
Precious Father, we thank you for your Presence in our lives this past year. You have been faithful and You have been generous with us. You have blessed us beyond our expectations and we praise You! Lord, today we sit at your feet and intentionally seek You as we end one chapter of our lives and begin a new one. Thank you for all you have done in 2012 and thank You for all You will do in 2013. We love you. Amen.