[0:00] And we'll get started. Let's start with prayer. Wonderful God, we ask you to bless us this night. Bless us with inspiration from your word and inspiration from one another as we work to hear what God is saying to us.
[0:17] And we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. All right. So now, Paul, have you been a part of the Pendleton Center Church?
[0:30] Yeah, no, no. Oh, OK. So OK, I was thinking of a different. I've been there. I've been there for a couple of services.
[0:40] Yeah. So but it's a ways from our home. So. So where do you live? I live in Ransomville. Oh, OK. Paul, I'm originally from Ransomville.
[0:52] My parents are still there. Walt and Sue Holmes. It's a really small place.
[1:03] Yeah. Yeah. You're right. They're just past the Free Methodist Church. Yeah. On the other side. Yeah. Yeah. Your dad's a judge, right? Or was?
[1:13] He was. Yeah. He's retired. Yep. Yeah. Oh, that's great. We're close to them in Ransomville. Do you live close to them? About two miles. I'm just I'm right on Ransomville Road about two and a half miles.
[1:30] Yeah. I'm closer to the ridge. OK. Yeah. So did we find our Bible study through Facebook? Yeah. I don't know where that came from. I probably I was trying to figure that out.
[1:44] Well, we're glad to have you no matter what. Yes, we are. We are. And actually, I'm a pastoral intern in a Lutheran conference.
[1:59] It's called LCMC. So I've been studying and anytime I can get more study, that's a good thing. Yeah, definitely. My dad was a Lutheran pastor.
[2:10] Really? What church? Redeemer back in the 80s, 70s. OK. Yeah. Oh, I've been all over the place.
[2:21] So, OK, so, you know, what? Interns is that's a great process. I've been a pastor for a lot of years.
[2:35] More than she's going to admit. More than 35. Let's put it that way. So you started when you were seven. I know. I did. Right. And, you know, it's interesting. When I came into the pastoral ministry at that time, many, many people were second career pastors, especially women, because women had not been allowed to be pastors for very long.
[2:59] And so the original kind of group of women that came into the ministry were largely second career. And so there were only just a few of us in upstate New York who came in married but with no children and then had our children as pastors.
[3:20] And and so it was just a very different era. And now we have a lot of we actually have a lot of young pastors and pastors families.
[3:33] And that's very wonderful. All three of our children were raised with my husband's a pastor as well. And so our kids were raised with double double PKs.
[3:47] Oh, PKs. Period. Plural. Yeah. And they went to a school where they got half off tuition for being United Methodist pastors children.
[3:58] And we said, I think you should pay them to go to school because they have both of their parents. They didn't quite buy that. I was going to say they didn't look at it that way.
[4:10] No, but that was, you know, our that was that was all good. They went to a great school and got a great education. So we we started a little bit with acts.
[4:23] Just just some introductory stuff last week. Talking about the fact that historically that acts is the second part of Luke.
[4:35] And so that if we actually had the the gospels in if we included attached acts to Luke, it would be Matthew, Mark, Luke, acts and then John.
[4:51] Right. Right. And so there's there's not a lot of clear understanding as to why acts got put past John other than keeping the four gospels together, even though historically it doesn't line that way.
[5:07] But that's how we understand it. And that in both Luke and acts, they're addressed to Theophilus, who we don't know who that is either.
[5:20] And there's some thought that he was Paul's lawyer. There's some thought that he was a bishop.
[5:30] There's some thought that because his name means loved by God, that that Theophilus was a name that was used to describe anybody who was listening as loved by God.
[5:43] So the both Luke and acts were written for an educated population. They were not written for people who had never heard of Jesus.
[5:56] They were not written for people who had never been who had never attended. Church services and previously synagogue services in the Jewish faith.
[6:10] Church services and previously mentioned that he was a physician. They were just a more of a more experienced, educated group of people. Not as educated as Luke.
[6:23] Luke was known to be a physician, which would have meant that probably he didn't go to school as long as doctors do here now. Had a pretty decent education.
[6:36] Probably they did medicine back then by apprenticeship. Rather than sitting in classes and learning things, which makes a lot of sense. So as as we get into this part of the just the beginning of acts, I want there's a couple of things that I was poking around about.
[7:01] One is we had talked last week about apostles and disciples and what's the difference. And I continue to kind of look that up and see different answers.
[7:14] In Western Christianity, we usually call the disciples disciples, meaning the twelve. But in Eastern Christianity, they usually refer to as apostles in the scriptures.
[7:30] They are referred to as apostles in Mark and they are referred to referred as apostles in Luke.
[7:40] I have the verses. So the name is important in that it remains with the twelve who were chosen to represent the twelve tribes of Israel.
[7:58] That's they didn't actually represent not like in the Old Testament, but that's the the number twelve is very significant. And so one of the early things that we'll find in acts is the work of replacing Judas.
[8:15] And and and that's why that was so important, because they had to have twelve disciples. They couldn't just go with eleven or twelve apostles.
[8:26] However, we want to look at it. I thought it might be good to hear some of the things that about the disciples or apostles as we know them.
[8:40] The time after Jesus died and was resurrected was a pretty ordinary time, because even though the disciples were preaching it and teaching it, they had no proof they had.
[8:55] They didn't have Jesus there to inspire and change people. The history tells us that they still went to buy two out preaching and teaching and baptizing.
[9:08] And they went just as Jesus told them without food, without extra clothes. Some of the chronological history tells us that that was a very difficult time for them because people had not the people where they were going had not gotten the message that when these apostles came into town and preached to and baptized and all that, that the community was supposed to take care of them.
[9:36] So there's some thought that they were. Quite downtrodden and really ended up begging for food and working hard to find place to place to stay.
[9:54] And so as we as we as we find them and I thought I thought I would share just a little bit. But this is one of my favorite church historians name is you see, yes, who was an author way back, like to 260 to 340 AD and has thought of to be one of the most reputable early, early church scholars.
[10:23] And so I'm just going to run through a little bit about not necessarily. We kind of watched the disciples go through the story with Jesus. And then we are told that they are all there for Pentecost, which we'll get to.
[10:40] And that was commanded that they should all be there when the gift of the spirit was given in between there. We're not exactly sure historically where they are.
[10:52] And then they they each they each had a different story. So if you'll just bear with me, I'm going to share this. Number one is Judas. We know what happened to him.
[11:06] That's a short story. Andrew was became a missionary to modern day Georgia, Bulgaria, near the Black Sea and Turkey.
[11:17] He was a fisherman, Peter's brother. He preached and he was crucified and died and was buried at Petra, which is in Greece.
[11:29] He unfortunately, many of the these disciples or apostles ended up in their lives ended very terribly.
[11:44] Bartholomew was a missionary to India, and he was also martyred and crucified. Several of the disciples were crucified upside down.
[11:56] Very terrible way to die. And he preached. The he he spent his time preaching largely the experience of Matthew and what we know of is the gospel according to Matthew.
[12:17] And again, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India. And so that was his story. James, the son of Alpha Alphaeus, what he stayed in Jerusalem and he was preached there.
[12:36] He was possibly Matthew's brother, not to be confused with the son of Zebedee or the author of the book of James, who was Jesus brother. And when he was preaching in Jerusalem, he was stoned.
[12:48] James, the son of Zebedee, he stayed local as a missionary in Judea, and he was martyred and beheaded in Judea.
[12:59] He was the son of Zebedee brother to John referred to by Jesus as one of the sons of Thunder. I always love that the sons of Thunder. And he was he was one of them.
[13:11] He was killed by Herod and buried there. John, brother of James and son of Zebedee, was banished to Patmos and died of old age.
[13:25] One of the few who died of old age. He he says that the reason that John wrote his gospel, Matthew and John have left us written memorials.
[13:40] And they tradition says were litten to the array led to write only under the pleasure of necessity. And when Mark and Luke had already published their gospels, they say that John, who had employed all of his time in proclaiming the gospel orally, finally proceeded to write for the following reason.
[14:00] The three gospels already mentioned having come into the hands of all and into his own, too. He bore witness to their truthfulness because he had seen it happen.
[14:12] So he began to write it down and was one who testified to the authenticity of it. Matthew, missionary to Parthia, which was Iran, died of old age.
[14:26] He came in as a tax collector and Matthew did a lot of work in the Hebrew language, trying to interpret the experience of Jesus as best he could to those who came out of the Hebrew tradition.
[14:44] Simon Peter, missionary to Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Batania, Italy, Asia, was martyred and crucified again upside down in Rome.
[14:56] Philip was a missionary to Turkey, and he was also martyred and crucified upside down in Turkey. Simon the Zealot, bishop of Jerusalem after James, died of old age.
[15:14] Thaddeus, Judas, son of James, this is not Judas, missionary to Edessa and then to the surrounding Mesopotamian region, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Iran, died of old age.
[15:27] Thomas, missionary to Parthians, Medes, Iran, Afghanistan, martyred. He was the one who was also called Didymus.
[15:39] We hear that periodically often when we when we do the Good Friday service and we're talking about that and we do the the lighting of the candles, the Tenebrae service and we name all the disciples.
[15:55] Have you been to one of those services? Yes. Yeah. And so every disciple a candle is lit for every disciple that followed Jesus and then they are put out according to how they managed around like leaving the scene of the of the crucifixion.
[16:18] And in that one, it's that's how we hear that also called Didymus, probably a fisherman.
[16:30] So that's a little bit. I mean, and that's something you can look up, but I find it. I find it very interesting that and inspiring that they were except for Judas.
[16:42] They were all faithful. They all did what Jesus sent them to do. And many of them suffered greatly as a result. And I suspect we don't know, but I suspect there was some feeling of having been faithful if they died similarly to the way that Jesus died.
[17:02] Right. Yeah, that was what I read. Peter died upside down because he didn't want to be crucified the way Jesus was. So he he preferred to be done upside down.
[17:14] Yeah. And several of them were. And I don't know whether crucifixion was a very common way to execute criminals back then. So whether what the traditions were about this upside down crucifixion, I'm not really sure.
[17:34] I can't imagine. No, I can't imagine. You know, we think that some of the ways that people die by lethal injection or electrocution, we think and I think most of us have come to know that those are actually very cruel ways to die.
[17:52] And very often people do not die as we would like to think they do. But it's we can't imagine the kind of brutality. And yet we saw it in our early history in our country.
[18:04] People were stoned. People were beaten to death in the town square and hung. So it's it's not necessarily cruelty that was outside or abnormal from its culture.
[18:22] So as we prepare to go into acts one and acts one leads into acts two, which of course is Pentecost. The can you can you describe anything that you ever saw or like witnessed that you thought at the time was unbelievable?
[18:42] It doesn't have to be an act of God, just something that happened and you kind of came away from it going. Wait, was that real? Nothing that comes to mind immediately.
[18:56] Most of us live pretty ordinary lives. But you always hear about clouds and silver linings, right?
[19:12] I actually witnessed it once. We were coming. We had gone to my son's house in Hamburg and we were coming up Route 5 and I looked up and the clouds looked like they literally had silver linings around them.
[19:29] And I'm like, tell me something. God is that real? It looks it really did that I saw the silver linings on a cloud.
[19:40] Wow. Yeah, it's it was pretty amazing. I think that some of the sites that I've seen and I don't know.
[19:51] It's hard to say that they qualify because they're they're God made, but their nature. Yeah. We had the opportunity to do a mission trip in Saipan, which is near Guam.
[20:04] It's in the Mariana Islands. It's part of the United States. And we were there building houses after a typhoon and the sky and the water. The water was the I've never been to.
[20:19] I've never been to the Caribbean. I've never been to places that people go where you scuba dive and snorkel and that kind of stuff. So this was a really new experience for me and the snorkeling and seeing I saw a sea turtle.
[20:38] So they're not happening things, but there are things that are so amazing that I just like couldn't believe that I even saw them.
[20:49] Mm hmm. And but it's not the same as something happening necessarily. Well, I guess I guess in retrospect, one of the things, you know, she was talking about the clouds.
[21:05] I don't know who that was. I was talking, but. That's Linda. Linda. Okay. There was a. I used to be in the Catholic Church and one of the nuns that taught in the program that I was in at her 25th anniversary.
[21:23] Yeah. I mean, it poured, you know, we just got into the church and then poured through the whole ceremony. And when we walked out, there was a double rainbow that went right across the sky. So, so long to say mine.
[21:36] Yeah. And that's I dare say that when it comes to the Ascension and the and the and Pentecost, we don't have much to compare to it.
[21:48] Yeah. On our own life experience. Because I think of the, you know, the really the most significant kind of miracles that I experienced was, you know, having children.
[22:03] And these human beings that that you think this, this isn't a man and a woman who made this baby. This is God. This is miraculous.
[22:14] And it's just in some, it's not, it's never ordinary to the people who are birthing the baby or the woman or the man.
[22:25] I don't think it's ever ordinary, but I think we think of it as kind of an ordinary everyday thing. But it's, I find, I find things like that pretty miraculous.
[22:41] My son saving my grandson's life. I considered, I didn't see it, but I consider that to be one of those miraculous things.
[22:52] So anyway, so we're, we're going to start. Let me just reach over here and get my Bible. Yeah, me too.
[23:03] And we're going to start in Acts one. And there are a couple of things here that Luke finds very significant.
[23:20] And Luke is the only one that pays a lot of attention to the Ascension of Jesus. And, and some, some churches and some denominations, the Ascension of Jesus is a high holy day.
[23:39] We largely don't really think about it. And the, some of the background of it. What would you say, do you know, what would you say would be, why would it be so important to people of faith who knew the story of Jesus?
[23:59] For the church. And the fact that he said it was going to be, go to be with his father.
[24:15] And that's when he did. And that he was going to, we were going to receive a gift even greater than he. And if he didn't leave.
[24:26] And if he didn't leave. The Holy Spirit couldn't come until he left. Right. I was just going to say, if he didn't leave. Yeah. Yeah. The Holy Spirit is mentioned throughout scripture, but he says, I'm going to leave and I will give you a gift greater than, than, than mine.
[24:47] And so how about if somebody reads verses one through five? Who's ready?
[24:58] Kelly? Sure. I am ready. Okay. Mine is labeled section number one, establishment of the church, Jesus taken up into heaven.
[25:09] In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven. After giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles, he had chosen.
[25:23] After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of 40 days and spoke about the kingdom of God.
[25:36] On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command. Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my father promised, which you have heard me speak about.
[25:47] For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. So we were, I find it interesting that not only does he remind them, this is what you've heard from me, that you will receive the Holy Spirit.
[26:06] And he remembers back to the, to Jesus baptism. And to John baptizing and John saying, John was talking about Jesus and Jesus talking about the Holy Spirit.
[26:19] All right. Will somebody read six through 11? Who's ready? I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm ready.
[26:30] Then they gathered around him and asked him, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, it is not for you to know the times or dates the father has set by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.
[26:53] And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes and a cloud hit him from their sight.
[27:08] They were looking intently into the sky as he was going when suddenly two men dressed in white stood behind them. Men of Galilee, they said, why do you stand here looking into the sky?
[27:22] This same Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven. The words of some of this, this talk about Jesus coming back.
[27:43] There was never such a time where people felt like it was any minute. You know, throughout Acts, throughout the epistles, we know that that people just kept expecting that it was going to be now that it was going to be soon.
[28:04] And that that that was the case for generations that people. People just believe that he meant he would come back right now.
[28:15] He would come back in a few days in 40 days in 40 years. And here we are. But it's I think that there was a lot of excitement that the disciples carried around as they preached about.
[28:34] He's coming back. He's coming back, trying to keep the excitement going around around Jesus and giving them something to look forward to. And so then there he goes, he's gone.
[28:52] And I think that they're probably I can imagine. And I preached on this passage. I can imagine them looking up into the sky and kind of in their minds like now, what are we supposed to do?
[29:07] Yeah. Yep. Like, wait, I'm confused. I'm confused. They. Yeah, it would be disorienting.
[29:20] How do you do that trick? Yeah. I was just I was the notebook I was using to make notes for tonight. When I found it, I discovered that it was a notebook that I had used on a trip to Peru.
[29:35] And on this one day we went to this mountain. It was called women and weaving, women weaving and writing. So anyway, this van takes us up this mountain where it's raining and it's muddy and it's a one line, one lane road for a car.
[29:55] And we were in a van. And so we took up the whole road. And sometimes we weren't sure if we were all the way on the road and, you know, back and back and back and back.
[30:06] And then there were places where the road washed out, where they would literally tie logs together over these gaps. And then our van would straddle on those on those logs.
[30:19] And the van kept going and going and it kept on raining and the mud was everywhere. And finally, first the van kind of fishtailed. We had we got out because the van needed weight out of the van.
[30:32] So we got out and the van fishtailed and went into the ditch that way. Then it fishtailed back and went in that way. And we're standing there on this mountain going, how are we going to get home?
[30:44] I mean, how are we going to get out of here? And so then he the van driver muscled through it and he got beyond that. But then he got to a point where the road disappeared and he was like, this is where you get out.
[30:59] I can't drive any. And we're like, where do we go? Where where are we supposed to go from here? And fortunately, our guide had a general idea, like straight up the side of the mountain to where we were supposed to be.
[31:14] But there was this moment of looking around, which I picture the disciples being like, I don't I don't know. I don't know. What are we supposed to do? The difference is the disciples weren't at 13000 feet feeling like the air was being sucked out of their lungs.
[31:30] Heart pounding because of the altitude. But I had a real mountain top experience. I did. I did. They. Ouch.
[31:41] I did. I did. I did. I did. I did. You know, we were on the boat. We were about three hours late. We were wet and frozen when they told us what to bring on this trip.
[31:56] They said, bring a rain suit. And I said to Matt, I'm not bringing a rain suit. Are you kidding me? Like, I can't even imagine putting it on. But I did. I, you know, I'm like, I don't know.
[32:08] know. So I brought it. Well, most of us had our rain suits and then everything else we owned on underneath it. But the people that were waiting for us had cooked a meal for us, chicken and potatoes and beans, and it was buried in the ground with hot rocks and then straw and then dirt.
[32:29] And it was amazing. In a pot? No, no, just wrap and foil. Oh, okay. Okay. I'm guessing campers and maybe Linda, you're shaking, you're nodding your head. Yeah. I've seen stuff like that on TV, like in Hawaii, and they wrap things in banana leaves and cook it. Yeah. So I've seen that.
[32:54] Boy Scouts do that all the time. Yeah. Do you have a name for it? I think just cook it around.
[33:07] They call them foil dinners. Foil dinners. Yeah. All right. I was amazed and it was a miraculous that they had it for us. But I do believe, and I think that sometimes in our own lives, we get to this place in our faith journey where we're looking around and thinking, what's next? What's next, God? What would you have me do?
[33:34] And with Jesus ascended, they're looking around like, well, who's in charge? And I'd like to know which one of the disciples said, he left us in charge.
[33:47] I don't know who might've said that, but obviously they got on about their business. All right. Let's read about Judas' replacement. Paul, do you want to read?
[34:07] Sure. Beginning in verse 12. Right. 12 through 14. Group of apostles, some from the Mount of Olives, as it is called, they went back to Jerusalem, a short distance away, no more than a Sabbath walk. When they reached the city, they went to the upper room where they were staying. There were Peter and John, James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James, son of Alphaeus and Simon and Zella and Jude, son of James.
[34:43] With one heart, all these joined constantly in prayer together with some women, including Mary, the mother of Jesus and his brothers. In those days, Peter stood up among the believers. Together, the crowd numbered about 120 persons.
[35:00] Now, I don't know where this room was, but the room that we saw in that was considered the upper room, I don't know how they could have ever put even 50 people in it, let alone 120.
[35:16] There was, there's no place in the, in the Holy Land. It's not like they had auditoriums back then. So there's not really any place that, that, so you can imagine that people were probably in there like sardines and sitting in the windows and, you know, just all kinds of stuff.
[35:36] So about 120 persons and said, friends, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit through David foretold concerning, concerning Judas, who became a guide for those who arrested Jesus.
[35:51] For he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in the ministry. Now, this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out.
[36:06] This became known to all the residents of Jerusalem so that the field was called in their language, Hackel Dama, which is field of blood, for it is written in the book of Psalms, let his homestead become desolate and let there be no one to live in it, and let another take his position of overseer.
[36:29] So how do, what is the description in your Bibles about Judas' death? Does it talk about falling headlong and he burst open in the middle and his bowels gushed out?
[36:43] Yep. Yep. I always thought Judas went out and hung himself. Me too. And so this, I don't know how this correlates with the verse, with the story in the Gospels where it says Judas went and hung himself.
[37:01] One of the other letters, I believe, it does speak about Judas hanging himself. Right.
[37:12] It's someplace else in scripture. I can't put my finger on it, but I'll look it up. I don't remember who told me this, but they said that they think that he did hang himself and that the branch let go and he fell headlong into the field.
[37:29] Oh, now that makes sense. Yeah, the rope. That fits with their description that he fell from hanging and falling and then that's when evidently he broke.
[37:40] Well, yeah, and depending, to get technical about it and biological about it, depending on how long he was hanging there with, you know, just the way a body.
[37:56] Oh, right. Yeah, it would make sense that when he hit the ground that things burst open. Yep. We lost two people.
[38:08] I said, I'm here. Two people. I can't see Kelly and I can't see Paul. Oh, I can see both of them. I'm here.
[38:18] Now I can see Kelly. Now Paul was there for a minute. There you are. Now everybody's there. It happens to me once in a while, too. So, look, Kelly will disappear for no reason and KP comes up instead.
[38:31] Yep. I wonder, are you in the view, like the gallery view? Uh-huh. I'm in the, right, in the gallery view. I mean, I can see you all now. It was just interesting that both of you disappeared at the same time.
[38:44] And you never know whether that's someone turning off their video. Right. They have to go do something or something's going on. So, this, and this, the field of blood, you know, there's been throughout the ages, places where people are buried who have no one, have nothing, or are considered outcasts, where lepers would be buried, where people considered unclean would be buried.
[39:20] And then when we moved into an era of church, and specifically the Catholic church, where it began to be, if you were Catholic, you had to be buried in a Catholic cemetery.
[39:33] Mm-hmm. A Catholic can be buried in any cemetery. But the Catholic cemeteries are kept for Catholics. And, in fact, I recently saw a piece of art.
[39:46] It was the headstones from a man and woman who, one was Catholic and the other one was Protestant. And it was up the wall, the wall dividing the Protestant and Catholic cemetery.
[40:00] And it was two posts that went over and two arms went across over the fence. Oh, cool. And were holding hands. That's cool. I was like, I was like, now, if, I think Jesus would have said, get over here.
[40:15] Let's put these people together. But that wasn't, so anyway, then we came to, in our country, we came to have something called a pauper's field, which would be where people would be buried who had no money to pay for a grave, no money and often no markers.
[40:39] And to this day, Matt does funerals in Rochester for an organization that provides funerals for people who have nobody and no resources.
[40:51] And two or three, Matt and the person from the organization and probably somebody from the cemetery stands there and they honor that person in death.
[41:03] But that's, it's, you know, we have quite a history of what do you do with people that don't fit in the norm. And whether it all is traced back to this field where Judas end up being buried, I don't know.
[41:24] But it's just that we do still have this kind of train of places where the people that basically nobody wanted got buried.
[41:36] And actually, my wife is from Elmira and her dad converted to Catholicism. So her parents are both buried on the Catholic side of the cemetery.
[41:47] And then there's another cemetery for the Protestants, which was the other side of her family. So it's still him. I mean, they've changed all that now. You know, they don't do that any longer.
[41:58] But yeah, what you were saying, that's kind of a snickering a little bit. And there are very definitely Catholic areas and cemeteries still.
[42:09] And sometimes full Catholic cemeteries where if you're not Catholic, you wouldn't be buried. You wouldn't be buried there. All right.
[42:20] So we'll go back to one. And so it's, you know, let his homestead become desolate and let there be no one to live in it.
[42:31] And let's take another, have another take his position. So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day he was taken up from us, one of them must be the witness.
[42:48] So they made it very clear that whoever they picked couldn't be a new kid, couldn't be somebody who was newly involved. It had to be someone who had been with them from the baptism of John.
[43:05] So they proposed to Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justice, and then Matthias. And they prayed and said, Lord, you know, everyone's heart.
[43:16] Show us which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.
[43:27] And they cast lots for them. And the lot fell on Matthias. And he was added to the 11 apostles. Now, do your Bibles use the term cast lots?
[43:37] Yes. Yes. Yes. Because it's interesting that, you know, that's not a very reputable way to do that in terms.
[43:47] It's kind of like betting. You know, people remember when Jesus was crucified and they took his clothes and people cast lots for getting his robe.
[44:00] His clothes. Yeah. His clothes. Right. So, so I don't know, you know, I don't know, like, were they shooting dice? I don't know. But I've heard that too.
[44:10] It was dice or they drew straws. Right. Yeah. I always pictured it drawing straws. But who knows?
[44:21] Not, we don't know exactly. So now we're, we're going to talk about Pentecost.
[44:38] What do you know about Pentecost besides the coming of the Holy Spirit? Pastor Tom always impressed upon us.
[44:49] Um, I think it's verbatim almost from the scripture. They were all together in one place. And he often made the point that they weren't just physically together.
[45:01] They were kind of all of one mind and there was unity in their beliefs. And do you think that came from the upper room that 120?
[45:12] I mean, we don't know how many people experienced Pentecost in terms of the coming of the Holy Spirit. But I do think that's a great, um, message that, because we think about them just being a crowd of people that are in the same place.
[45:27] Yeah. I only thought it was just the 12, but I guess there's, it doesn't say that. For some reason I make that assumption. Well, and they, they understanding that there were people there who spoke many different languages.
[45:40] The disciples did not speak different languages. That's right. So they could understand each other. So it leads me to believe that there were other people, um, maybe travelers or whatever, whatever kind of a group of people.
[45:57] Pentecost is not, we think of it as the time when the, the birthday of the church, we decorate with red.
[46:08] Some Sunday schools have birthday cake. Um, Pentecost existed before Jesus. Uh, Pentecost was a huge holiday, a huge festival for the Jewish people.
[46:22] Um, and it was one of the biggest and most important, um, holidays. And so it's in the, in the Jewish tradition, it's called Shavuot.
[46:36] Um, and I'll just read this description, Jewish holiday that commemorates the single most important event in Israel's history. The giving of the Torah, which is the first five books of the Hebrew Bible to Moses at Mount Sinai.
[46:51] And although it's not well known among non-Jews as Passover or Sukkot, the feast, the feast of booths, it is one of the three major festivals, often called Pilgrim.
[47:02] So more than 3,000 years ago, after leaving Egypt on the night of the Passover, the Jews traveled to the Sinai desert. There they experienced the divine revelation as God gave the Jewish people the law.
[47:16] In Deuteronomy, Moses reminded the people of that experience. When it's written for, in Deuteronomy, remember the day you stood before the Lord, your God at Horeb in Sinai.
[47:28] You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain while it blazed with fire to the very heavens with black clouds and deep darkness. Then the Lord spoke and he declared to you his covenant, the Ten Commandments, which he commanded you to follow and then wrote them on two stone tablets.
[47:47] So Pentecost is the, is the, um, the time between Passover and the giving of the Ten Commandments. Um, so you could, you could understand why that's a very, very sacred journey that they, uh, that the Jewish people, um, celebrated 50 days.
[48:08] There's 50 days between, um, the last supper, not the last supper, Passover and, uh, Pentecost or Shavuot. Um, and Pentecost is actually a Greek word.
[48:23] Um, and it literally means 50, you know, when you think about a pentagram or, you know, get into shapes and things like that.
[48:35] 50, um, you can put the, the, the, the, the origin of the word and you can figure out 50, but I personally have never really paid attention to what Pentecost meant because for us, Pentecost is the coming of the Holy Spirit.
[48:54] And it's like, it just showed up that day of Pentecost when really see when we talked about people, that's why there would have been so many people there from all over.
[49:05] They would be coming to celebrate the festival of Passover of, I mean, I'm sorry, Pentecost. Um, and so that's, there's, um, often talk about the 50 days, um, between Monday, Thursday.
[49:27] Um, and those, the time between after that, um, and there's, you know, the season of Pentecost, I think is somewhere.
[49:40] It could be somewhere around 50 days, but I'm not sure. Um, but that's some of the story behind Pentecost before we ever even show up at the door of Acts two.
[49:51] Um, it gives us some historical background. Um, I don't know how you guys feel. I find the history interesting. I like to know, um, kind of what the, what the culture was like and what was going on among the people.
[50:11] Right. And it continues with the tying together of the old and new Testament. Cause there was, I remember, I know it's only a couple minutes ago, but my memory is not what it used to be.
[50:25] The original Pentecost also involved fire. Right. When I was reading that from Deuteronomy and we think about when Moses received the 10 commandments.
[50:36] And of course we don't have a lot of visuals, but I mean, we have Charlton Heston up on the mountain. And, um, lightning and thunder. And, um, so, but it does, it talks about, um, it blazed with fire to the very heavens with black clouds and deep darkness.
[50:54] Yeah. Sounds like a, we don't know whether the Pentecost experience that we're about to read about. I don't know that we know whether it's day or night. Um, certainly it would be incredibly dramatic because what's being described in Deuteronomy sounds like it's at night with the sky basically on fire.
[51:18] Um, which, you know, just makes for a more dramatic story. Um, they, um, so what thoughts do you have going into Acts 2 and talking about Pentecost?
[51:42] What, what have you learned? What have you been taught? Um, um, I always.
[51:53] thought of Pentecost as the time that they, that the Holy Spirit came and that's the time that they were filled with the Holy Spirit. And when Jesus or God or the Holy Spirit, all three were available to everybody, not just the high priests.
[52:10] Right. Um, and part of what Jesus promised the disciples was that in this power given to them, that they would be given the power to speak on behalf of God, um, that they would, um, and it, but it's everybody.
[52:30] And so, um, this, this one author puts it like this, um, that Jesus ushered in the promise of Pentecost by drawing attention to the priority of the Holy Spirit.
[52:45] Dependence on the Spirit is so important that Jesus, the Lord did not ask his followers to attempt to begin their mission without it. You got to wait. You got to wait. You, you know, you've got to receive this Holy Spirit.
[52:58] Of course, with the Spirit comes the power of Pentecost. And Jesus promised his disciples power to speak for God like the prophets at old of old had done. And then get this, it would be like saying to different people in our Bible study, you're going to be like Daniel.
[53:15] You'll be like Deborah. You'll be like Jeremiah. And the reason that this author says this is because we often underestimate the power that God gives us in the Holy Spirit.
[53:27] We don't think of ourselves as being necessarily the people that Jesus is talking about in terms of the power that the Holy Spirit gives us.
[53:40] Um, how does that land? Do you think that's true? I think it is. And it reminds me of, um, the song that says the same power that rose Jesus from the grave lives inside of us.
[53:56] Mm-hmm. And, and we tend to forget that. You know, we think about, yeah, I have Jesus in my heart, but you don't think about how powerful that is.
[54:10] You know, how powerful it is to, to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And that it looks different in different people. Yeah. You know, I think that's one of the things that we sometimes get confused by is that if you're a Pentecostal, then being filled with the spirit looks like this.
[54:30] If you are, um, a different denomination or come from a different background, um, there are backgrounds where you would, you might think that they don't believe in the Holy Spirit because they're always so serious.
[54:47] And everything is so sort of legal and, um, doesn't demonstrate a lot of joy. Um, but, um, so I think we sometimes, and not everybody is given the gift to speak for God using words.
[55:06] Mm-hmm. Um, I think about the people that, um, whose spirit given gift, and I don't just mean the gifts we read about in Corinthians, um, or Hebrews or many places that, that sometimes what it looks like is that it's somebody who's somebody, anybody who has faith and is doing the work of God.
[55:36] Not just speaking the word of God, but doing the work of God, feeding the hungry, um, that, uh, teaching, teaching children, teaching adults, um, doing things, you know, even, um, people who are medical missionaries.
[55:58] I mean, they, there are people who wouldn't preach a word if their life depends on it, but they are very definitely doing spirit, Holy Spirit work.
[56:08] Yeah. And I think what this author is saying, what about us? You know, do we claim that for ourselves? Do we?
[56:23] Yeah. Probably not. But it also said, Jesus also says, if you have faith enough, you can move that mountain. You will do greater acts than I, you know, so there's, there's certainly in the scriptures a testimony that we, we should believe that and should be able to do that.
[56:42] We have faith. Anybody else? Yeah. I just think we don't tap into it enough or, or just believe strongly enough in it.
[56:57] Yeah. I, it made that, as I said that it made me think of something I've heard a lot recently, you know, do you believe in God or do you believe God?
[57:07] And I think, you know, many people believe in God, but do you believe him that he will fill you with his strength and his power and his spirit? I think it's a big difference.
[57:20] And I think I, myself, I have to make, you know, I, I don't always have that really strong belief. I definitely believe in him. Um, but I need to believe more that we can do anything, move that mountain that Paul talked about.
[57:35] Yeah. Uh, you know, the doing all things in Christ who strengthens me. Um, there's, there's a sense that I, I picture sometimes, you know, when you go to a restaurant and you're having, let's say, I'm going to say breakfast.
[57:54] Cause this illustration involves coffee and how the person who, if you're in a good restaurant, she says, first of all, it'll be good coffee.
[58:04] But the second part is that they will come around and fill your coffee cup. Um, as long as you let them. Um, and so maybe you hear where I'm going that there comes a time when people put their hand over their cup or move it away because if they drink any more coffee, they're going to vibrate all the way through their day.
[58:27] Um, but there, there may be our times when, um, our cups, so to speak, isn't open. It's not, I don't know that it's closed, but it's like we can take a quarter cup or a half cup, but do we really kind of open ourselves wholeheartedly to the whole pouring, um, of the Holy Spirit?
[58:53] Um, and I have our cups so full of other stuff that there's nothing that can be put in it because it's overflowing with other stuff. That's right. That's, um, yeah, I think you've probably seen the illustration of the, the container with water and you put in rocks and you keep putting rocks in until eventually the water kind of flows out.
[59:17] Um, with the implication being, if you put too much in there, you're going to lose, you have to give up something. Um, and we are not very good at that. Um, I say that we're not very good at that.
[59:31] If it feels like we're not good at that, if our life is full and robust and we feel like we're fulfilling what it is we're supposed to be doing, then it's not necessarily too much.
[59:45] Um, but if it's cluttered up with stuff that we don't find particularly meaningful, um, then, then maybe that's worth looking at.
[59:56] But of course it includes things like being with our family and taking the dog for a walk and, you know, whatever. It's not like it's got to all be what we make holy work.
[60:09] Um, churches are very good at filling people with a lot of stuff on their schedules. But how much of it is, how much of it is that work of believing God?
[60:27] Um, I like that, Kelly. I like that. I like that description. Um, and, and I, yeah, cause I think we, we believe in God.
[60:40] I would say that some of the, do we believe God would be in these places where we're told that we have access to this power.
[60:56] Um, and we're a little nervous about that. You know, the, sometimes the Pentecostals scare us. Um, and I'm pretty sure that we scare them.
[61:09] Um, of course that's not true for Kelly cause she gets up and sings and that's quite scary. But so she can do that. Um, but it's, um, I think that.
[61:24] I, I go ahead. Dan said to me, did you just tell the congregation to start dancing when I said. Yes, you did. And I loved it. There were, there was more than one person who looked at me like, I will not be dancing.
[61:40] I did a sermon about that once on Saturday night. We, um, I, when I was in seminary was the first time I ever heard a gospel choir and it was a big choir and they were in our big chapel and they're clapping and swaying and calling out and stuff like that.
[61:59] And I said to my pastoral care theology professor was like, there's a funny part of this. And there's a real part of this. I'm like, what's wrong with us? We sit there and we enjoy it like this.
[62:12] Isn't that nice? That's so moving. And yet, you can't tell by our bodies at all. Right. And so he said two things. One is, would you like to talk about that?
[62:25] Um, I was like, no, I don't want you in my soul asking me why I don't do that. I want to know why are our cultures so different that we can't find a place in the middle.
[62:39] And I, I believe that a part of that is our discomfort, our discomfort with the fact that our body can feel our faith.
[62:51] It's, and I, I say that I'm not aspiring to be Pentecostal. I'm not, um, but I know myself to be not always comfortable, um, in some of that kind of moving in the spirit.
[63:08] I can clap if I can follow somebody and I can't really dance. So, you know, you gotta deal with the, you gotta, you gotta deal with the gifts that God gave you and the ones that God didn't give you.
[63:20] Um, it reminds me, um, I lived in Washington DC for about eight years and I went to a United Methodist Church in Alexandria, Virginia. Loved it.
[63:31] Um, predominantly white congregation, but every Easter we partnered with a black church also in Alexandria. And we would do a service at their church and a service at our church, the two choirs.
[63:43] And when we went to their church, the first year, they had this soloist that just brought down the house, just this gospel singer, you know, so moving. And people were getting up and shouting.
[63:55] And after the service, she said to us, now, who does that solo in your church? Cause usually we would do the same songs in both places. And I said, nobody can do that in our church.
[64:07] Like we can't do that. We can aspire to that, but there is, I mean, I just love that. I, you know, every once in a while, I wish we had a little more of that, but. And I, having said that I'm not coordinated like that, that, that does not mean that I don't love it.
[64:24] I love, I love the sway to it. I love the amens. I love the, the, the sense of leaning in, like with your whole body, you're leaning into what the message is.
[64:37] And music is the most, probably the greatest vehicle for that. When, when I do come back to live worship, she'll find that I'm the one to clap and I'm the one to raise the hands while I'm singing.
[64:51] And yeah, we have Melissa Radha who does, you know, Sunday morning service. And, um, and I see other people doing that.
[65:01] When you sit in the front, especially the way we're sitting now in the front, looking at the front, you can't really see what people are doing. When you're sitting up front, you can see what everybody's doing, but then of course they can all see what you're doing too.
[65:14] And if there's a lot of swaying and clapping going on and you're sitting there like this. People think you don't have it.
[65:24] People think you don't have the spirit. And I definitely don't feel that I've, um, I, I love the movement of the Holy Spirit and I love watching it and being in it.
[65:39] And I think that music is often a vehicle for that. Um, so we used to have a praise concert in the spring, but it got to the point where they were having trouble getting people to sign up for it.
[65:56] So we haven't done it in a few years, but that was always great. All right. All right. So, um, we're going to go briefly into acts two.
[66:10] Um, and so who wants to read Pentecost, the first four verses? Oh, we will.
[66:22] Oh, go ahead. Kelly, you want to? Go ahead. No, no, you go, Linda. When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.
[66:40] They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
[67:00] So. The. Um, I'm trying, I'm listening to this and I'm thinking when it talks about the entire house.
[67:16] Um, my commentary said. The dramatic arrival fulfills Jesus prophecy prophecy, enabling the entire community, the entire community to communicate God's word to the household of Israel.
[67:37] So house. Community. Is it the disciples who are just gathered there? Is it the disciples?
[67:48] Um. You know, in. Largely people wouldn't gather in a large group inside of a building. Um.
[67:59] Because there's just not room. Um. So then. Um. So then. It's. You know, then we go to verse five. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem.
[68:13] So then the crowd gathered. Um. And was bewildered. So is it possible that what happened started with the disciples as Kelly was saying.
[68:24] But then moved out into the community, which would have been people from all over the land because they were there for the festival of Pentecost. Does your.
[68:38] Does that how yours read? Yeah. They were staying in Jerusalem. Yeah. Yeah. Every nation under heaven. Yeah.
[68:49] God fearing Jews from every nation. Yes. But does it just does. Do you think it describes that sense of here they were in this worship by themselves and then they moved out after the Holy Spirit showed up or did the Holy Spirit show up to more people than just the disciples?
[69:12] Well, when. Because if you. I always thought of as. Not necessarily the 12, but whoever was.
[69:25] Grouped together there. And then they went out. Because when you read on it says utterly amazed. They ask aren't these the Galileans who. Who are speaking and how do they know our.
[69:37] Our language. There's no question that it moves out. Yeah. Right. The signs of the Holy Spirit are heard. It's not.
[69:48] This is not a private miracle. This is something. This noise is heard by people in Jerusalem. Okay. Yeah. They. So I'm guessing that it could be.
[70:02] The crowd that we hear about when they picked Matthias and there was about 120 people in that group that could have been the same group.
[70:13] That now found themselves in this home, so to speak. And that's when the Holy Spirit showed up.
[70:24] Then all the noise came. And then all of Jerusalem could sense what was going on. Does it sound like a logical. That when they heard the commotion, they all kind of gathered.
[70:48] Yeah. Yeah. So Kelly, why don't you read starting at 5 and going to 13, through 13.
[71:01] Okay. Now there were staying in Jerusalem, God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken.
[71:17] Utterly amazed, they asked, aren't all these who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Carthians, Medes, and Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, Egypt, and the parts of Libya near Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs.
[71:48] We hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own hearts. Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, what does this mean? Some, however, made fun of them and said, they have had too much wine.
[72:03] Yeah, we always get that. And, you know, somebody on Pentecost always gets assigned that reading with all those names, you know, Pamphylia and Phrygia. And, you know, there's certain times when people who know Scripture want to stay away from...
[72:21] I think I butchered half of those, yeah. Pastor Tom always said, say it with authority and nobody will know the difference. That's right. That's right. They...
[72:34] But it's, you know, as it talks about devout Jews from every nation. So people had come to Jerusalem for this festival of Pentecost.
[72:46] It was a big holy day. And so it makes sense that we read that they were there from all over, that they'd come here. Kind of like when Mary and Joseph went to register, that people were already there.
[73:02] It was... It didn't have anything to do with there not being a room, because that's part of the biblical story. Literally, the crowds had gathered in Bethlehem.
[73:14] And so we have this... Probably if we saw something like that happen, we'd wonder if it was a tornado.
[73:25] We'd be going around looking like, oh, my gosh, is this... What is it? And I can understand the bewilderment.
[73:37] And what do you think would be going on in people's minds during the amazement and the perplexing as others sneered and said they were filled with new wine?
[73:48] How would you correlate that to some things that happen in ordinary, everyday churches? Speaking in tongues? No, I mean things like you've got all this excitement and amazement, and then you've got the people who are saying, oh, they're just drunk.
[74:05] That's what I'm talking about. The people that comes to mind, the people that no matter what you try, they're going to be like, you know, nah.
[74:18] Downers. Yeah. The Debbie Downers, you said? Yeah. Or the people that are afraid of something new. You know, when you talk about amazement, some people are afraid of it.
[74:32] And so they might be prone to criticize because it makes them uncomfortable. You know, if a black gospel choir came and they were in every other seat so that they essentially were surrounding the entire congregation and people were sitting that close to that movement, I think there are some people that would be like shrinking into their seats and others would be like, can I get up and sing with you?
[74:56] Right. So, yeah, it's just, I never feel like it's a bad person or a bad thought. It's, they're not comfortable.
[75:06] They're concerned about something that's outside of their comfort zone. And so that's kind of where that is.
[75:19] And so as we, as we come to an end with this and this evening, what have been the most powerful Pentecost services or ways that you've seen Pentecost celebrated?
[75:41] Has it ever been, have you ever experienced it as being something particularly powerful? Or is it just the red geraniums and the red?
[75:56] At our church for the last, I don't know, however many years, it has usually coincided with Confirmation Sunday. Yeah. So unfortunately, I think many of us think, oh, that's a really long service because we have had like up to 50 confirmands.
[76:13] Yeah. And so some people even avoid the service because it's so long. And we have beautiful red and yellow and orange.
[76:23] They look like ship sails. Yeah, like sails on the ship. Oh, right. They were up when I came. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was just shortly before and it was beautiful, but I don't feel like, I feel like I've had Pentecostal type experiences, but not in our church celebrating Pentecost because of Confirmation.
[76:44] Yeah. It kind of overshadows it. Yeah. Yeah. What about you, Paul? We used to, when I was in the Catholic church, they would do that.
[76:59] And like she said, that's a really long service. Can you hear my microphone? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I can hear you. I have a message on here. It says your microphone appears to be noisy.
[77:12] Oh, you're fine. It's a brand new computer. I just bought it a couple weeks ago. Better not be. I get that once in a while too. Like when my little heater in here is running, I'll get that.
[77:23] Oh, okay. Yeah. You're all good. So you have some similar experience with the service being really long?
[77:33] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We didn't do Confirmation at that time. But in the Catholic church, they had a program where it's called RCIA. My wife would sponsor people who were, well, some were being confirmed or people were coming back to their faith.
[77:50] And it was just a really long service, you know, and certainly our kids when they were little, there would be a long, long night for them. In fact, I leave them with my parents.
[78:02] So. So what would you, what would you like? What would you imagine would be a great Pentecost service? Certainly with the music and these readings here.
[78:17] And there are, there's a lot of different readings that they do at that time as well. You know, as you were relating to some of your experiences earlier, about six months after the, the hurricane, the hurricane that hit Haiti, who went to Haiti and the mission strip.
[78:44] And they were down, we were up high and there was a church down below us. They were down there. They were rocking every night for about three hours, at least. So, yeah, I don't know if I could put up, you know, if I could go there long.
[79:00] Yeah, right. It kind of depends what it is. And I think there are probably some people for whom that's normal and they don't even notice that it's three hours.
[79:12] I think when there's a lot of talking, like confirmation involves a lot of talking, then that doesn't move along quite as quickly. I think when we did confirmation on the parking lot, it was, well, there were only 14, which was plenty for doing it in the parking lot.
[79:32] But it felt, it felt in some ways like Pentecost because it was such a happy, spirit filled, like these kids really wanted this.
[79:46] They did not want to not have their confirmation. But that's all the service was. It wasn't everybody. And it wasn't so many people. But it's, it is interesting how sometimes things that are supposed to be really powerful spiritual movement kind of services can be taken over with good intent because it is a, it's a great, happy day.
[80:16] but you end up wondering where Pentecost went. Right. Right. It's, it was all about, it's all about confirmation. It's not, and these, don't take this wrong, but it's all about confirmation in these kids.
[80:31] It's not about letting yourself be filled with the Holy Spirit. It's less, boost these kids up so they are. And I think that, I think that it would be really powerful if there was a service that focused more on renewing ourselves and the Holy Spirit.
[80:54] Some, no, one, oh, I'm sorry. No, go ahead. No, not, obviously not this year, but last year, the National Day of Prayer, they met, our church meets in a fire hall and they had all the local churches, all various denominations that came there and there was probably, oh, I don't know, three or 350 people there and that was very moving.
[81:23] They had, you know, several pastors from a number of churches come and they would talk for a few minutes and then there would be lots of singing and then some more readings and more singing and that was very, very powerful, very moving.
[81:37] those are opportunities. Well, at least I'm taking this into my mind as we look ahead.
[81:50] We might have Pentecost this next year, we will, but we might not have confirmation. So, we don't know what that's going to look like. Right now, we don't have confirmation, but we will again and, but it's likely that it won't be happening on Pentecost this year.
[82:07] So, it's good to hear. I find it to be a great day for really powerful music and inspirational preaching using this passage.
[82:27] I don't know that the preaching has to be where the power is. I think the power, it kind of all fits together as, you know, if you surround the proclamation of the word with music that kind of lifts you up out of your seat, then...
[82:45] Amen. Yeah. Absolutely. We're going to pray for that because, you know, it's, we can be hopeful that even though things are not looking good right this minute that this will end.
[83:04] We talked to the Niagara County Health Department. Louis called them yesterday and, because he wanted to know, there were questions about how the contact tracing works and people being afraid of kind of getting caught in the contact tracing if somebody at church and whatever.
[83:25] So he wanted to understand it. But with the Niagara County Health Department, they asked him to describe what we're doing. So he described our safety forward plan.
[83:36] He described what we were doing. And she, the woman he talked to said that we were gold standard, that the way that we were handling everything was exceptional.
[83:50] I mean, every, she complimented everything from trying to shorten the service to the screenings and just, so it was really nice to hear.
[84:01] I feel safest at church. Yeah. Right? And I mean, that's a great metaphor, but yeah. And, and I heard that they're even looking now at the possibilities of virtual general conference next year.
[84:20] Can't even imagine. I can't either, but. I think I, you know, and this probably isn't the time to talk about general conference, but I think it, I think that sounds like a disaster.
[84:31] It does. Because of the work that needs to be done. So, but that's not mine to decide. And we'll just hope and pray that God makes a way.
[84:43] If it's that important, then God will show us what it is that, that we should do to make it happen. And maybe he's giving us time within the United Methodist Church, giving us time with the, with the things we need to take our time with.
[85:04] Paul, what we're talking about is that every four years, the global United Methodist Church gets together and makes decisions about our rules and the way that we're going to do things.
[85:21] And so we have people from Africa, the Philippines, all of Europe, and then the United States. And as you could imagine, quite imagine, everybody's not theologically in the same place.
[85:34] Covers the whole spectrum from conservative to liberal. I probably did that backwards. Conservative to liberal. You have to go right for conservative and left.
[85:45] That always confuses me, but anyway. We know what you mean. So trying to get people to come to some agreement about some pretty big things is not an easy thing.
[85:58] And it was supposed to be in May, and now it got postponed until next August, September of 2021, and now they're talking about possible doing it virtually.
[86:10] And that would be tough. Yep. We just, in the LCMC conference, it's a small conference, and they just had their 20th celebration of the gathering of that conference.
[86:30] And they had to do, most of it was on virtual. They had some people that went, very few numbers, maybe a couple, two, three hundred people, and that was it. I don't even had that many.
[86:41] So it's unfortunate, you know, but. Yep. It is what it is. It is. So Kelly, when you were talking about losing your office, she's in her son's room because her son's at college.
[86:57] college. And so will your, will Kate and Jack be home when they come home? Will they be here all the way until they start the next semester?
[87:09] They will. Jack, for sure, till January 19th, he goes back. I think we take him back on the 18th. So he'll be home for just about two months, which will be great.
[87:20] And Katie, we're not sure. we know she'll be home almost 100% through Christmas. So Thanksgiving through Christmas. But after that, it depends on what happens with volleyball.
[87:34] She's thinking that if they go back and play volleyball, they'll be, they'll have to go back and start practicing early January. What is this? When is the season for volleyball?
[87:45] It was supposed to be first games at the end of August and they canceled the season. But they said they were going to make it a spring season. But now, I don't know what's going to happen if they're going to.
[88:00] Who knows? Yeah. That, I think it was Heather at the church who was saying that her son will be home Thanksgiving, but he won't be going back until the beginning of February.
[88:15] And their daughter, who's already home because they weren't, she couldn't go to college, it looks like they're going to, at this point, they're going to let her come to campus.
[88:28] But it won't be until February. Oh, wow. So, the kids will be home for a long time. That's right. Her daughter, Katie, is Katie Minor because that's their last name.
[88:41] she and my Katie were in preschool together. And even at that time, my Katie was so tall and head and shoulders above everybody else. They called them Katie Major and Katie Minor.
[88:54] My daughter's 6'5", Paul. Wow. But even in preschool, she was tall. and so it was Katie Major and Katie Minor.
[89:08] Sounds like a place. When you said Katie Minor, I was like, I think I know where this is going. Katie Major and Katie Minor. She's still petite. That little Katie Minor is cute.
[89:20] She's really just a, you know, really tiny. The two of them together are precious. I met Wes, her husband, for the first time. Oh, yeah. Saturday, we were painting up in Niagara Falls together.
[89:33] Oh, nice. That was really nice of them to come. Yeah. And Irene moves into the house on Friday. Wonderful. Oh, that's good. And I think I'm going to, unfortunately, not be able to be here for the next two Wednesdays.
[89:49] I just wanted to let you know that Dan has surgery next Wednesday. Uh-oh. And then the following Wednesday we'll be bringing Jack back. Oh, okay.
[90:00] Yeah. Well, we'll certainly I hope he's okay. I just had two surgeries in the last month and a half, so. Oh, wow.
[90:12] I feel his pain. Yeah. Oh, you look like you're recovering well, Paul. Do you feel like you're recovering well? Yeah.
[90:22] Just, um, I was at therapy today, and so I had a knee replacement and, um, so then, um, I had some other issues that I'd been having for a while and it just kind of came to highlight for us.
[90:38] My granddaughter told her boyfriend's mother, it's a dude problem and I don't want to talk about it. So, that's the bigger issue because I can't pick up more than 10 pounds for a guy who's been athletic and did physical labor all his life.
[90:58] That's killing me. So I have to get my son over here to help or today I had somebody come and put a microwave in and I, I did it the last time by myself.
[91:09] And so, you know, all these things just kind of drive crazy, but it's hard. What it is. When I, I do some, some work at Roswell Park Cancer Institute and when, um, it doesn't take long for me to walk into a room, um, to realize that this person has had some kind of surgery that they don't want to talk about, um, because they're a man and I'm a woman and there are certain things that, that they just, it's kind of like a little bit of pride going on around talking about that kind of personal stuff with, um, with a woman, especially when they're doing well, they're just recovering from surgery and they're like, I'm good.
[91:51] I'm good. I'm good. Thanks for coming. I mean, that's what I told the nurse. She said, okay, now you've got to go in there and you've got to put that gown on and I'm saying, you know, Bible talks about not being prideful and I said, I lose any sense of pride up here with that gown on half my backside show.
[92:08] Yeah. So I, I understand that's, um, sometimes the way it is. Yeah. And I understand that too. You know, some people are like that, you know, um, it's all part of life, you know, I, you know, I inherited my mother's hair and my dad's other issues and they both died of cancer.
[92:28] So, yeah, it's, uh, it's, it's a tough one and cancer's a tough, a tough disease when you talk about something that kind of is part of our broken, you know, the world is broken.
[92:46] They, our relationship with God and we lost perfection. So we live in this broken world and I think that cancer and AIDS and COVID and they're not acts of God, but they are part of our broken world.
[93:00] Right. I, I didn't have cancer, but, um, so, but a pastor friend of mine, yeah, pastor friend of mine had, had it in five days a week or nine weeks he had to go and go to this treatment.
[93:16] Took 15 minutes. Yeah. I don't want to, I don't want to see it. So. All right. Well, as we say good night, um, let's close in a word of prayer.
[93:33] Heavenly father, thank you for your word and thank you for this exciting conversation about the Holy Spirit and all the power of your spirit that has changed the world and changed the Christian story and we just know it was what you wanted and we hope and pray that we might grow more open to the movement of your spirit.
[93:57] Um, so show us, open us and help us to see you and we pray for safe nights, good health, safety from illness and Lord be with Dan next week when he faces surgery and help Paul continue to grow and strengthen um, after his surgery.
[94:17] In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Blessings lady. Have a good night. Blessings. Good night. Have a good night. Jagimastor Jon 2016 Year encoding 안녕 Henderson misunderstoodовой language Thank you.