Our First 10 Days

First: Time with Jesus — Then: He was gone — Now: “Tarry, wait!”

“Why are we here?” asked my mother’s brother, moving from the philosophical to the practical.

“We are here,” replied one of the followers, “because he said that we should wait.”

There was then an outbreak of questions…

For 40 days, the risen Christ had remained among his disciples, and then, leaving them, he gave instruction that they wait together in Jerusalem. “Wait,” he said, but why? The word was an enigma; what had Jesus intended? Whatever the meaning, the disciples would obey; they would wait.

Choosing, we believe, to gather at the Upper Room, for ten days and nights, they waited but surely not in idleness. Together, they would wrestle with momentous questions.

For 75 years, Leonard Mann has contemplated those people in that situation, their struggle to understand Jesus and his meaning in the world.

A plausible journey in doubting and believing, Our First Ten Days is a marvelously crafted story that invites the reader to visualize events and conversations at the Upper Room during that time. It was here that the church was born, that the foundations of Christian Faith were chiseled and laid.

If we allow ourselves to imagine the thoughts and words of those long uncertain hours, we will find ourselves submerged in a powerful narrative that boldly and creatively walks us through the opening chapter of this Faith.