together

It's Tuesday, which generally means that I'm lunching with my friend from down the road, Douglas. Today was no exception.

We were barely sat down before he was saying, "You seem busier than ever!"

Well, I suppose I am. The decline in the number of 'posts' on this blog over the last little while is a tell-tale sign of that. Things are hotting up.

The large bulk of yesterday, for instance, was taken up with a major 'strategy' meeting. Important, and useful: we live in days of very real significance, and the need for God's people to be getting their act together at and for such times is absolutely crucial.

That's me, middle row, second from the left. [No, just kidding!]

That seems to be a thing writ large for us on the opening pages of the book of Acts - the story of the early church. Jerusalem is not an easy place to be back then, if you're a follower of Jesus Christ. The tide of public opinion is pretty much against you: there's an open and destructive hostility towards Jesus, the Word of God. 'Truth' has been tossed aside.

So the small band of followers of Jesus get together. The word suggesting 'togetherness' gets a bit of underlining by simply being repeated. As if to say, it's important they're together.

And then, when the critical day comes round, we're told they are not just 'together', but also "in the same place."

So far as the Greek is concerned in what Luke wrote, it's not necessarily a geographical reference. It's as much that they're in the same place spiritually, reading from the same script, as it were, at one with one another. They've sorted things out and got their act together.

And something astonishing happens. Quite unexpected. It throws the whole thing upside down. It reverses the numbers game in one remarkable moment. The Spirit of God comes down. Thousands are convicted and converted.

A corner is turned. The Jesus story moves on in a way that few if any in Jersualem could ever have expected.

And the starting point to it all? The opening line in this whole new chapter of grace?

"They were all together in one place."

There's something about that sort of 'unity', that sort of 'togetherness' and being at one with one another, that even the Lord himself recognises as a potent sort of force. It was the Lord himself, after all, who declared at the time of the tower of Babel - "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them."

That's without God's Spirit.

One people, speaking the same language .. nothing .. will be impossible for them.

So when you factor in the powerful Spirit of the God for whom nothing is impossible to a people who've got their act together and are as one - well, it stands to reason that there'll be no stopping them.

How vital, therefore, in these significant days, to be in this way 'together', 'in the same place', 'at one'.

But it's time-consuming, too, of course. That was a whole day out of the frame. The week gets suddenly shorter.

And because the days are significant ones, today there's been a lot of work to do through e-mails and by letter. A lot of people to speak with and to be in correspondence with as well. A lot of careful thinking to be done, as all sorts of things come together in our congregational life.

Farming is one of the images used to describe the work of the gospel. I've worked on farms, so I know how it goes.

Some of the time it's all pretty slack. The workers are not idle, but it's just a case of keeping things ticking over. Other times it's hectic. All hours of the day and night. I've been there, done that, got the payslips to prove it.

It's little different with the work of the gospel. For long enough it all seems fairly harmless, routine stuff, with little to show for your effort.

And then the harvest season comes around. And all of a sudden the pace quickens, the hours lengthen, and it's round-the-clock commitment that's required!

There are signs, I think, that the season of harvest is near.

When I first came here, the word the Lord had given me was exactly along those lines. I had been brought here in the providence of God for a harvest he would reap.

It's been a long time coming! But I'm wondering if maybe what I'm seeing at this time is indicative of God's harvest now arriving here at last. A lot of things are finally coming together.

Together.

One people. One language. One place. For such a people, nothing will be impossible.

I think we do well to get ourselves ready for fireworks!