Jesus told eleven men to wait, but not how long

JERUSALEM, around 30 AD — Jesus shared a last meal with the eleven apostles in Jerusalem. He gave them an order at that table: they were not to leave the city, but to wait there for what the Father had promised them. Jesus did not say how many days that would be.

The men at that table were Galileans, a long way from home. The city they were told to stay in was the one where Jesus had been put to death. He had been crucified close to the city a few weeks earlier. Afterwards his disciples had met behind locked doors. There were eleven of them now, not twelve.

One of the eleven was Saint Bartholomew. He came from Cana in Galilee, and he was one of the first men Jesus called. Jesus had given the Twelve the power to drive out unclean spirits and to cure every kind of sickness. Then he sent them out to the people of Israel. St. Bartholomew had seen the risen Jesus. For forty days since then, Jesus had been teaching the apostles about the kingdom of God.

At the table, the apostles had a question of their own. “Lord, dost thou mean to restore the dominion to Israel here and now?” they asked.

Jesus would not give them the day. “It is not for you to know the times and seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority,” he said.

Instead of a date, he told them how big the work would be. “Enough for you, that the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and you will receive strength from him; you are to be my witnesses in Jerusalem and throughout Judaea, in Samaria, yes, and to the ends of the earth,” he said.

A cloud, and two men in white

He spoke those last words on the Mount of Olives, a short walk outside Jerusalem. While the eleven stood there watching, Jesus was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. They were still staring upwards when two men in white clothes appeared at their side. “Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking heavenwards?” the two asked them. “He who has been taken from you into heaven, this same Jesus, will come back in the same fashion, just as you have watched him going into heaven.”

The eleven walked back into Jerusalem and went upstairs to the room they were staying in. They spent the days praying. St. Bartholomew prayed with the other ten. The Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, prayed with them, and so did the other women and the relatives of Jesus.

The empty place among the Twelve

Some days into the waiting, St. Peter stood up in front of about a hundred and twenty people. One of the Twelve, Judas, had shown the men who came to arrest Jesus where to find him. Judas was dead now, and his place among the Twelve stood empty. St. Peter said what the new man had to be. He had to be someone who had been with them since the days when St. John the Baptist was baptising, and who had stayed until the day Jesus was taken from them.

Two men were put forward. One was St. Joseph called Barsabas, who also went by the name Justus. The other was St. Matthias. Everyone in the room prayed together over the choice. Then they cast lots. The lot fell on St. Matthias, and he took his place with the eleven.