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The time during which they were to "tarry" proved to be ten days — from the Thursday to the Sunday week following. It was just long enough to be a real test and trial. You may say, perhaps, considering the circumstances, it was a tremendous trial. And yet, mercifully, just shortened enough to be not intolerable — a discipline, but like every other from the Father's hand, a discipline beautifully tempered. I am inclined to think that this interruption — I speak, of course, according to man — this interruption by ten days had a great design, and that it was to illustrate one very important part of God's methods with all His children, at all times and under all circumstances. I see traces of the same method of dealing throughout the Bible. There is a pause, there is a breathing time, before anything falls. In judgments, the flood did not begin till not only a hundred and twenty years had passed, but not until seven days after the date for which it had been positively announced. And at Sodom, at Gomorrah, at Jericho, at Nineveh, at Jerusalem, there were intervals, distinct, between sentence and execution. While equally, many, I might say most, of the best blessings of which we read did not come till there had first been what you may call their period — a waiting-time. Sometimes it is very short, as in the case of the Syrophoenician woman, or Mary and Martha at Bethany, three or four days; sometimes longer, as with Abraham looking for a son, or David's succession to his predicted throne; sometimes exceedingly protracted, as when good king Hezekiah never lived to see the answer to a father's prayers in the conversion of his son, and yet, nevertheless, when the appointed moment came, his son was brought to God, though the lips that prayed it were silent. And what, what is the whole of this dispensation through which we are now passing? A space between two advents — a waiting time for that which seemed to be, and which apostles thought to be, quite close at the door two thousand years ago. Do you say that is too long to be a parallel, that is not an interval? Nay, "a little while and ye shall not see Me; and again a little while and ye shall see Me, because I go to the Father." And we are dealing with One to whom "one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." The thought, then, which I wish to impress upon you, and which seems to me to be the lesson of this season is, that God is a God who delights in intervals — intervals as they relate to our little minds, but all an equal part in one grand design — and that the right viewing and the proper use of these intervals is an essential part of the Christian's education. We ought to know how these intervals should be passed. First, you must have in your mind a remembrance that it is an interval, only an interval, an ordained interval, an interval with a defined boundary line — though you cannot see it — that it is in the map, that it is as much a part of the map of God's covenant as the issue which is to come, or as the means which you are now using to obtain it. Then, acknowledging it as God's own waiting time, you must honour Him. Shall the great God, all wise and true, be hurried by one of His creatures? "Tarry thou the Lord's leisure" is written on the fore-front of all God's government. Is not it enough for you that He has told you "what"? — are you to dictate the "when," and determine the "where"? Still, while you keep the eye of expectation upon the horizon where the promise is to arise, keep your hand on the door. The hour is a fixed hour — it is in the "determinate counsel and fore-knowledge of God." Then, in the interval, you will do well to do just what Christ told His little Church to do in this great model of all waiting — go on with present duties, be content for a little time to have a very small sphere, keep in the appointed path, and be sure that you use ordinances, be where all blessing comes, stay in Jerusalem. Then, in your Jerusalem, look to it that it is all love, else your prayers will be hindered. And, like the twelve — and this is a wonderful record, and shows how God blesses and honours His waiting ones, even when all outward circumstances are quite dark — spend the time in great joy. And be much in prayer, especially united prayer.

(J. Vaughan, M. A.)

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KJV: And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.

WEB: As they said these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, "Peace be to you."