"... wait for the Promise of the Father."

When you were a child, did your parents ever say to you, as mine said to me, "Hold your horses!" I must have heard that phrase literally hundreds of times as I was growing up: when I wanted school to be out for the summer, when I fretted because a meal was not ready, when I wanted to do something exciting "now," when I spoke too hastily, when I demanded something be done immediately, when I couldn’t stand still while mother measured a hem in a skirt - I can hear it as though it were yesterday, "Hold your horses, honey! Hold your horses!"

Jesus is preparing to leave his little band of disciples and is giving them last-minute instructions. For three-and-a-half years, he taught them by word and example; for forty days after his resurrection, he cont…