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Suppose you are witness to the most remarkable event ever to transpire in the whole history of the world. You are powerfully moved to go everywhere and tell others about it. But by the highest authority you are advised not to do so. You are told to wait; the voice says: "Not yet; something else must happen first."

As you wait you wonder: What else could be so important that you must now await it, especially given the urgency of what you already know? You would like to go and tell the world of one crucified and risen; but you cannot, not yet.

So it must have been for Peter and James and John and all the rest, when the risen Christ, having said, "Go," then said, "Wait." "Tarry until." Until what? Until when? And, above all, why?

So those apostles and other disciples of Jesus resolved to do as he had told them: They would await whatever might next occur. Their Master had lately said to them, "You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now" (Acts 1:5).

But to them, what was the meaning of this? John had baptized with water, and they knew about the water. But this matter of Spirit -- this was new, without precedent. There was no reference point in the past to which they could look and say: What God once did he will now in a few days do again. They stood at the threshold of an immense unknown.

Today you and I know what they did not. We know that after ten days they were indeed baptized with the Holy Spirit, and we have some general idea about the significance and worth of that. They knew only that they must wait, and this they did; faithfully, and at length fruitfully, they waited.

Suppose they had not. Suppose that following the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus they had parted from one another and returned to their homes, never to see each other again? Suppose Peter and James and John had gone back to their fishing on Galilee, Matthew to his tax collecting, each to the occupation of his past? What would have happened then? I think we can answer this question with a single word: Nothing. Nothing would have happened. Today there would be no church, no New Testament, no Christian gospel as we know it.

The day Jesus finally disappeared from them on the Bethany Road (Acts 1:9), those disciples of his had a monumental decision to make. They may have said: Well, it's over now -- our three years of following him, that strange event on Mount Golgotha, that even stranger event three days later at the garden tomb; it's all over now; it was an altogether memorable time we had with him; we will remember and cherish it, each of us; but now good-bye, Peter; so long, John; it was good being with you, Philip; now let's all go home.

Now this those people may have said and this they may have done; but they didn't. Thank God they didn't. Instead, they stood firmly by what Jesus had said they should do, and this they did despite the hazards of doing so.

The enemies of Jesus who had crucified him were still abroad in the land, and his followers knew the jeopardy in which they stood; there was the possibility of other crucifixions. Nevertheless, one and all, together they tarried at Jerusalem, gathering in and about the now-famous upper room.

In effect, Jesus had said: I leave you now, but I am not through with you yet; up ahead there is something more; wait for it. And so, together, they waited.

In all this, can you and I hear messages for us today? If we listen carefully, I think we can. In the first place, hear this one: When the issues are drawn and the hard decisions must be made, it is the role of God's people to stand with courage, not to cut and run. In the second place, it is the role of God's people to go when we can go and to wait when we must.

And waiting isn't the easiest thing in the world to do. Most of us don't like to wait and many strongly resent it. We choose rather to be on the go, full speed onward.

I suppose you have noticed that even traffic lights can virtually undo us! Checkout lanes can put us into near-panic, and, as you may have observed, we invariably, so it seems, select the lines where it always turns out the longest delays are!

I wonder why we normally think of waiting as an interruption. Sometimes it is, of course. But then sometimes it isn't, but is rather prelude to something good or great, something that, except for the waiting, could never be. And if you think about your life from earliest childhood onward until now, you will find the truth of this illustrated over and over again. Most of the best things that ever came into your life you had to wait a while for.

But, truly, some of our waiting times are of another kind, and are indeed serious interruptions. The green turns red; it is an illness or some other obstruction on the road. It seems sometimes that we get stuck in a wrong lane and there must wait as the whole great world seems to go on by.

Well, think about this question: Why did the Lord require his people to wait those ten days before he sent his Spirit upon them? I suppose nobody will ever really know the answer to that question; certainly I won't. But let me share with you a thought or two about it.

The apostle Paul tells us in Galatians 4:4 that it was "in the fullness of time" that God sent his Son into the world. The fullness of time: What is the meaning of this? You and I may never know; but we do know that when Jesus came the known world was for the first time interconnected by communication lines. There were the roads the Romans had built; also, for the first time in history, a single language, Greek, was known and spoken all over the world.

Thus, for the first time, the good news of Christ's coming could rather promptly be communicated worldwide. It would appear, then, that in a very practical way the time was "full" and the world somewhat ready.

Without doubt, though, God saw other aspects of "fullness"Êthat we have not and probably never will. In his own wisdom and for his own reasons, God appointed the time of the Savior's coming. And so it was also, it would seem, with the coming of the Holy Spirit upon his people.

Perhaps that baptism did not occur earlier because the intended recipients were not yet ready to receive it. Just maybe Simon the Jewish Zealot and Matthew the tax collector for Rome needed to break through some walls that divided them. Just maybe certain disciples needed to get over their resentments of the youthful and talented John. Just maybe Nathanael or Philip needed to purge their hostility toward Simon Peter for his denial of their Lord.

I would strongly suspect, wouldn't you, that that ten-day wait was not an idle time. Of course, our waiting times should never be idle ones. Why, even at an intersection, when the light is a long while red, we might at least hum a merry tune or let the mind play host to some creative thought.

But the disciples during that interval weren't exactly sitting at an intersection waiting for the light to change, nor were they likely in a humming mood. They stood between an immediate past they could not possibly comprehend and a long future that was a complete mystery to them.

From Jesus, they had heard things never heard on earth before, and they had seen in his life among them things so strange as to call in question the very validity of sight itself. That event at Calvary had broken all the stereotypes concerning death, and in the entire history of the world who had ever before seen anything like a resurrection?

What feelings must have surged within them; what profound themes must have prevailed in the conversations among them; what struggles of mind and spirit must have been theirs?

No wonder Jesus had asked them to tarry; they had a lot of probing and searching and hard thinking to do. They needed to find out where they were in their strange new world of experience, to see themselves in an entirely new and different light, the light of an unprecedented death and the resurrection following. And where were they in relationship with their leader now? And what of the tomorrows? I am sure that nobody knew.

Then came Pentecost. The ages-long process of preparation apparently now past, and all being ready, God moved to pour out upon these few of humanity the Spirit he had long designed to give.

So we have here that ancient event we call Pentecost. How important was it? How important was it then to those first disciples, and how important is it now to us? There is one great question concerning it, and we must ask that question now. And asking it, we will not be the first to do so. The question was first posed by bewildered observers who stood by in amazement on that pentecostal day itself. Witnessing all the goings-on of that early morning hour, they asked, "What does this mean" (Acts 2:12)?

On that day, it was Simon Peter who answered. Speaking with great assurance to all present, he declared: "This is what was spoken (long ago) through the prophet Joel" (Acts 2:16). Through this prophet, God had said, "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh" (Acts 2:17).

Pentecost, then, as Peter understood it, was the fulfillment of a Divine intention; what God had long desired to do he had now done. Now Christ had come, was crucified, and risen. After all the marvel and wonder of this, what was Pentecost? After something like a resurrection, what could possibly be added?

Was Pentecost a mere footnote appended after the main story had been told? A postscript perhaps? A sort of Divine afterthought?

You never could have persuaded Peter to believe this. For him, as for most of us, I assume, Pentecost was not a mere incidental that happened to happen after all the important things were done.

There is every indication that Pentecost was an essential, and, in some ways, a goal toward which all else had been aimed. God had long striven to bring his people to an enlarged dimension of humanhood so that at length he might entrust them with the gift of his Spirit.

It was as though God were saying to us of humankind: From your most primitive past I have labored to bring you forward, to teach you life, to open up your heart, to fine-tune your spirit; then I sent my Son, I incarnate in him, and some of you he has led farther forward than any have gone before; I believe you are ready now, and so I invest of myself in you; I trust you supremely; I give to you a power the man Simon Magus could never buy; and I will that you use this power, joining with my Son and me, as a means to win the world; now go do it; my enlisted ones, I have now empowered.

It seems, doesn't it, that God may have been saying something like this. Anyway, those 120, from that day Spirit-possessing and Spirit-possessed, traveled those Roman roads and the sea lanes and mountain passes. In the full power of the mighty Greek language and every other tongue, they passionately convinced multitudes to accept and follow the redeeming Christ.

And so it was, until when two of their growing number, Paul and Silas, came into the province of Thessalonica it was said of them, "These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also" (Acts 17:6).

It was from a place known as the upper room and an event we call Pentecost that the news of Bethlehem and Golgotha and the risen Christ sprang forth and spread across the world.

Simon Peter saw that event as a fulfillment, and indeed it was, but not, however, as an ending, as many fulfillments are, but instead as a new beginning. Pentecost, having many preludes, would itself become prelude to much that would come afterward.

What does this mean? This was the bystanders' question. When Simon Peter had answered it, those same people asked another: "What should we do?" (Acts 2:37). Two good questions: What does this mean? and What should we do?

Answering this second question, Peter made a declaration that has great significance for us today. He let those people know that the promise of God was not limited to a small company of special people. They to whom he spoke were the bystanders, onlookers, spectators, and this is what he said: "The promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him" (Acts 2:39).

You ... your children ... all who are far away ... everyone whom the Lord calls: This includes us, doesn't it, every one of us.

Allow me now, please, to raise two questions with you. First, how important is Pentecost in this Faith we call Christian? Enormously important, it would seem. The more vital question, though, is this: How important is Pentecost to you? I don't know. Only you can answer that.