Before the church became the church, there was a prayer meeting.

Eleven disciples. The women. Mary the mother of Jesus. A hundred and twenty other souls crowded into an upper room in Jerusalem. There was no agenda, no program, no order of service, no certainty about what came next. There was only this: they all joined together constantly in prayer.

"Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?"

The question reveals how little the disciples actually understood about what would happen next. Even after forty days of being taught by the resurrected Jesus, the disciples were still thinking in old categories. A national hope. Political and perhaps military restoration. Of ethnic Israel. 

They were not totally wrong. But they were mostly wrong.

Take a deep breath; I’m not here to talk about politics. I’m here to talk about the Bible.

Scripture references left and right over 200 times. Symbolically, the right side represents strength, honor, favor, power, and blessing. Conversely, the left hand often represents weakness and opposition.

That’s what the two disciples told the unnamed man on the Emmaus Road. As Red told Andy in The Shawshank Redemption, “hope is a dangerous thing; hope can drive a man insane.” It is hard to think of a more deflating and debilitating thing than hope when it is spoken of in this way, in the past tense.

It’s in rough shape today. But in the summer of 1780, in the small village of Acton, Maine a revival broke out under the ministry of an itinerant pastor by the name of Tozier Lord. Fifty people came to faith, and a brand new congregation was born.

The other day I sat with a pastor in the Boston area - faithful, thoughtful, grounded in a tradition that hasn’t always emphasized the supernatural. But his context is forcing new questions. In an urban setting, people are walking in off the streets carrying more than visible needs. There are layers of oppression that counseling alone cannot resolve. There are realities that are not merely psychological or social, but spiritual.

Not long ago, I drove with friends to one of the most historic churches in Providence. It stands at the physical center of downtown — white, immaculate, magnificent. Its spire has risen over the city skyline for centuries.

The progression of Holy Week seems to have a way of recalibrating my faith to the realities of what Jesus Christ walked through to pave the way for us to be set free.

The glorified Christ appears to the Apostle John, exiled on Patmos. He comes with messages for His persecuted, first century Church; congregations of disciples scattered across the Roman empire.

A reflection for the church in New England.

The book of Judges ends with a haunting line. A spiritual diagnosis. “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

The world says “the more you give, the less you have,” while the Lord tells us it is more blessed to give than receive (Acts 20:35).