The Day Afore

May 23, 2020 Daily thought and prayer

Acts 1: 12 – 14
12 Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk[c] from the city. 13 When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. 14 They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.

Last week ABBA’s Eurovision winning song ‘Waterloo’ from 1974 (really? No way!) was voted the best ever Eurovision song (and I am not going to get into arguments about it not having a lot of competition). It may well deserve that accolade, but it is far from my favourite ABBA song, which came at the other end of their career in 1982 and inexplicably despite being one of the records of the twentieth century only got to No 32 in the UK charts, the song was ‘The Day Before You Came’.
Like Bolero the whole record is on a single beat behind a repetitive backing track (if you can’t recall it it’s here. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HnOFwqpLRQ). It tells the story of a day in the life of the lady singing the song. She tells of how it was an unremarkable day, routine matters, with no idea of what was happening the morrow for this was the day before she met the unnamed man who’s pending arrival in her life is the central theme. The wholesale change he wrought in her life is only revealed in almost the last line when she sings “I had no sense of living without pain, the day before you came” …such a sad ending!
In Luke’s account in Acts the Disciples return from witnessing the Ascension to their place of refuge in Jerusalem. They get on with the things of everyday life for them, praying and as we saw the other week tending to the admin and choosing a replacement for Judas Iscariot. Did they know what would be happening very soon?
Well they did know something was going to happen for Jesus had told them it would, so they waited. Not like our lady in ABBA just going the motions of the day but with anticipation and probably excitement.
For when the Spirit came their lives were enriched empowered and enlivened.
Such a happy ending