There was a man by the name of Joseph, a member of the Jewish High Council, a man of good heart and good character…He lived in alert expectation of the kingdom of God. (Luke 23:50, 51b The Message)
For my birthday last January, my wife got us tickets to see the comedian Tig Notaro (pictured above), on March 15 at the Chicago Theater. Tig’s dry sense of humor rarely fails to make me laugh so the combination of seeing her and actually going out to a show in person at this historic venue was a treat.
The show was supposed to start at 7 pm, but, not surprisingly, Tig didn’t actually come on stage at 7 pm. Audience members slowly milled in with their drinks in hand at 7, 7:10, 7:20, until finally around 7:30, the lights went down and a cheer went up. No matter what kind of performance I’ve ever been to–music, theater, sports–that moment when the lights go down and you begin to see something take place on the main floor/stage is palpable. There is a collective energy in the room where everyone seems to be thinking and/or voicing the same thing: Something remarkable is about to happen. That expectation is hard to match.
I read a book a few years ago by Matt Miofsky and Jason Byassee called 8 Virtues of Rapidly Growing Churches. There are a lot of practical tips for churches, but it’s a quote from the first chapter that has always stuck with me: “Acting as if we believe that the Holy Spirit is up to something in our midst is the single greatest game-changing decision a church leadership team can make.”
It’s easy to get into a pattern of prayer and faith formation where things get a little rote and one thing is lacking: expectation. I thought about this during a prayer service we had for Ukraine a couple weeks ago at our church. In the midst of our prayers for peace, I wondered, “Do I believe that the Holy Spirit is active in the midst of this unfathomable tragedy?” There are times when I have to honestly wonder how I’d answer that. On my better days, though, I have the kind of faith that Joseph had in Luke 23, a faith that has an alert expectation of the kingdom of God. The kind of faith that when the lights go down, I believe something Remarkable is about to happen. The kind of faith that believes–truly believes–that the Holy Spirit is up to something.
In the midst of a series of gray and tragic days that we’ve been experiencing the last two years, that kind of faith isn’t always easy to have. We might feel like the Spirit is late to take the stage. But a robust faith–one that I try to cultivate every day–hopes and expects that something remarkable will happen, even if it doesn’t happen on our schedule.