Ep. 191 - Designed To Flourish
On this episode of Tell Me More, Katie, doctor Wiles, myself talk about Holy Week, kind of the history and tradition of it, but also what it looks like at our church, and then how we abide in Christ and learn to live life on the vine.
Speaker 2:Welcome to this episode of Tell Me More. It's Monday of Holy Week, and we are Yes. Pumped to be part of the church.
Speaker 3:We are.
Speaker 1:We are.
Speaker 2:Before we get into that, I think we should just pick up every once in a while, we just start hitting record because we're chatting. I'm gonna make us do that now.
Speaker 1:So Yeah. Set it up? For context Yeah. Katie has been talking about her love of reality television, and doctor Wiles is talking about how he does not own any counts. That's right.
Speaker 2:There it is. So I was saying I was saying Put those
Speaker 3:two together somehow.
Speaker 2:Spoke Saturday at my friend's women's retreat, which I'm not really trying to make a circuit speaker career. I've got a good career here, but I'll do anything for a friend. You could
Speaker 3:go katie reed hodges dot com. Right? Is that true? Is that a real website?
Speaker 2:I love it. You know, no, one time I'm sorry. Anyway, that's another story that we don't have to get into. But what I realized is, much like Doctor. Wiles, you like to preach to your people I do.
Speaker 2:The most, and that's more of that pastoral care element. I think that maybe that's true for me because my first illustration did not land at all.
Speaker 3:Were these women?
Speaker 2:And it was about reality TV, was about Real Housewives. It was about talking about abundance and what it's not and what it is. Yeah. It's harder, I think abundance is harder to define than it is to say what it's not. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So work on that. But when I say it didn't land, I mean, and y'all watch Real Housewives? 100% of the women were like, mm-mm, no. Do any of y'all watch any Bravo reality TV? And they're like, no.
Speaker 2:And I'm like, moving on quickly, moving. But what I was saying is my last illustration was about my family and the kids and the church taking care of me. Mean, story I've told over
Speaker 3:and over and over.
Speaker 2:The church
Speaker 3:They related to that.
Speaker 2:And they related to that Of course. And that led to you, Doctor Wells, about all over the world.
Speaker 1:Yes. People want
Speaker 3:to know
Speaker 1:who your people
Speaker 2:are.
Speaker 3:They don't know because when we're in West Africa, they usually say, Good morning, good morning. How are you? How are you? How's your body? How's your body?
Speaker 3:How was your sleep? How was your sleep? How are your children? How are your children? How are your cows?
Speaker 3:And we always go, oh, well, you know, and they just the the Fula people that we work with, they just can't fathom that we just don't have cows. So I was telling you all that one of our great translators, I'd been on, like, my fifth trip there. He knew me very well. And we're just in the village one night, and he said, so, they call me Samba. He said, so, Samba, how many cows do you have?
Speaker 3:And I said,
Speaker 2:I don't have any cows. And he was like, and you live in Texas? Their mind is blown.
Speaker 3:Yes. I said, I'm a pastor.
Speaker 2:He said, our pastor has cows. I said, I get that. But I live in a city. I'm sorry. Sorry to disappoint you.
Speaker 2:Don't have any cows. Completely destroy the stereotype of,
Speaker 3:Texas pastor when you know cows.
Speaker 2:Is cattle I mean, the more cows, the
Speaker 3:more prosperous. Your bank account. And it's because we have a running joke there, you never ask a fool of how many cows you have because that's like asking you how much money do you have. And so we were just joking with him about it. And he said, well, how many cows do you have?
Speaker 3:And when I said, well, I don't have any. He was like, No, really. Poor man. It's okay. How many do you have?
Speaker 3:I don't You have don't have any cows.
Speaker 1:Doctor. Wiles is destitute
Speaker 2:to Yeah, the pool of
Speaker 3:they were just And then he said, Well, when y'all gather every night in the village, you know, the elders gather every night, are you the one that leads that since you're I mean, since you are the pastor? And I said, you know, we don't, you know, we don't we don't gather in the evening in the village. Once again, looked at me like I had two heads. He was like, You gather with the elders in the village where you live. No.
Speaker 3:He said, Well, who meets with the elders? He said, If you don't meet with them, who meets with them? Cable news.
Speaker 2:Right, you said. I was trying to explain to him, you know what people in
Speaker 3:my neighborhood do is they drive their car in their garage and hit the garage door button, let them get out of the car.
Speaker 2:No, they just hang out with the And
Speaker 3:of course, our culture's superior. We're the ones that know what we're doing.
Speaker 2:So people just you just do as we do,
Speaker 3:Yeah, so that be happy led to this long conversation of, well, do you know what's going on in the village? Well, who tells the elders? Controls it all? Well, how do you know how to take care of the people if you don't have elders? You know, so you're like, okay, this is a little different where
Speaker 1:we You know, life is different in different places, but people wanna know who your people are.
Speaker 3:That's exactly right.
Speaker 2:The
Speaker 3:context is so important.
Speaker 2:It just is. Wherever I go if I have to be a guest speaker again, which Lord, I don't need that. Let me just say that out loud.
Speaker 3:But you can go to katiereedhodges.com. We're gonna work out.
Speaker 2:Don't think that way. Kyle, could you grab it Maybe for
Speaker 3:it should be .org.dotorg.
Speaker 2:Or this
Speaker 3:would be a nonprofit, right? Dotorg. Or does it matter?
Speaker 2:Don't know. You have
Speaker 3:more of a .net vibe. Maybe.
Speaker 1:I don't know what that means.
Speaker 2:I don't know what that means either. I took it as an insult. No. Yes. All over the world, if I was speaking somewhere, I'll just start with my family.
Speaker 3:That's a great idea.
Speaker 2:And have a love family. It's a good testament. Mhmm. All over the world this week
Speaker 3:It's holy week.
Speaker 2:It's week.
Speaker 1:In our Eastern Orthodox.
Speaker 2:It's our week. Western Christianity. We'll Yeah. But let's see. We'll draw all over the most of the world in our world.
Speaker 1:For all descend out of the Western side of the church. It's holy week.
Speaker 2:It's holy week. Which means we're walking toward the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3:I've been in some meetings with, in fact I had one last Thursday with some
Speaker 2:folks that are part of this two thousand thirty three movement and the goal is 2033, kind of quote unquote, the two thousandth anniversary of Pentecost. You with it.
Speaker 3:Both east and west to have Easter on the same Sunday is the goal right now. And there there are a lot of machinations behind the scenes to try
Speaker 2:to make that a real How does the Eastern Orthodox Orthodox Church decide Easter?
Speaker 3:Well, they don't use the same calendar. I know.
Speaker 1:So the sake of clarity, to make sure I have it right, our Easter is based on the first It's the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. Correct.
Speaker 3:That's how we do it. That was decided in Nicaea 03/25.
Speaker 1:So for the eastern church Mhmm. They're going for the second full moon?
Speaker 3:They are. And they and they and they're
Speaker 1:No. Wait. Are they really using
Speaker 3:the second? No. No. They're not.
Speaker 2:We know it's different, but I don't know why.
Speaker 3:Yeah. They have not fully embraced the Gregorian calendar calendar that we use. And so they still use the spring equinox. They just date it differently with the Julian calendar. And it's their, what would you say, I hate to say they because if I were Orthodox, it would be our.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. But it's just a measure of independence. You don't mean that we're
Speaker 2:not majority of us and them
Speaker 3:are under control of the Western church, in other words, is one of the ways to put it. Because, you know, there's a huge discrepancy between our view of the Trinity and our understanding of of how the
Speaker 1:They are Trinitarian.
Speaker 3:Let's see. They are Trinitarian about how the spirit of God was given to us. And they're also very connected to icons, which that's not something that's in our culture, religious culture. And so we kind of function independently of each other, but it's only been going on since 10:54. So give us a break.
Speaker 3:Give us a chance to
Speaker 2:get thing
Speaker 3:figured out. Okay. It's only been sixteen hundred years. Okay? So we're trying to
Speaker 2:figure it out. But in
Speaker 3:the Western church, yes, it is the first full moon, the first Sunday after the first full moon of the vernal equinox. And so that's it moves sometimes.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Now now you do have the brackets. It can't be earlier than such and such a date. It can't ever be later than such and such a date. You know what I mean? So there's a there's a window that you know Easter's always gonna be in that window.
Speaker 3:It's interesting when you go to Rome, Pope Gregory, he, Gregorian calendar, named after him, he wanted there to be a, kind of, astronomical certainty for the church. And so he had a lot of research done for the astronomers in the church to truly address this and make sure that they were doing it correctly and all that. And so when you go into one of the churches there, used to be a Diocletian's bathhouse. It's a massive structure. Michelangelo converted it into a church of angels and martyrs, kind of dedicated to the martyrs that died during Diocletian's reign.
Speaker 3:And so it was one of the most settled buildings in Rome because Michelangelo elevated the floor, but the building was built in the 300s, or in the late 200s. And so, in other words, it wasn't going to move anymore. So he had a planetarium built adjacent to it, and then he had put in the floor of that church, the church was facing the right direction, what's called the meridian line. And so they they had to cut a hole in the corner of the, of the church to allow this ray of sunshine to make its way onto the floor of the church. And you had this long meridian line, and that ray of sunshine, and how it connects in that meridian line is how they officially dated Easter, you know, for a couple hundred years.
Speaker 3:And it's still there. Still use it. It's still usable today, but they're they're pretty settled now, though, in the Western church about about the date of Easter.
Speaker 2:You it's
Speaker 3:kinda fascinating.
Speaker 2:Tell me about Holy Week. When did that come about? These remembrances.
Speaker 3:Yes, what I would say is when it comes, you know, what's funny is about, not funny, what's interesting about our calendar is the way we do it today, Christmas is such a big deal to us in our culture, When actually, that was a latecomer, really, to the church's celebration. Easter has always been the highlight of the liturgical calendar.
Speaker 2:It used
Speaker 1:to be the day that you got baptized. Like everybody got baptized. No one got baptized outside of Easter.
Speaker 3:Correct. And so you would mark every year with a, there'd be a season of, catechism. You you you would you would have this catechumen class where if you were gonna get baptized, then you had to go through this class.
Speaker 1:And we've got records that class was, like, three years long.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Depends. Depends on where you were in the world. You know? But but the bishops of the churches, they just said, look, we're not gonna just baptize people.
Speaker 3:You know? It's, a little bit of a controversy even today about when you baptize someone. But regardless, they just said, you're gonna have to go through some training and actually demonstrate your discipleship. Then we'll baptize you. And typically, that was always done on Easter Sunday.
Speaker 3:And so as a part of the journey, you know, it eventually, for some people, came a forty day journey, but you marked that last week and you traced the steps of Jesus all the way to the cross as a part of your training for your baptism. And so, you know, it wasn't long until the church embraced the fact that, well, we need to set this one week aside, you know, as a as a week of hope that's holy. And then after that, we don't typically call it that here. We're going to this year because I've just decided it's it's okay. I believe it's right.
Speaker 3:Eastertide is the season that begins on the day after Easter and takes you all the way to Pentecost. And so, so we're going to actually use that nomenclature this year at our at our church. We're gonna have an Eastertide season that'll start next Monday. But Holy Week is is go back to the earliest days in Christianity, and Easter is the day. It's you know, everything changed.
Speaker 3:Obviously, we moved out all these Jewish Christians moved their worship day to Sunday because of the resurrection. So the resurrection of Jesus changes everything. And so the calendar was actually built around it. Know, Easter. And eventually Christmas gets added, but Easter's always been the high mark for Christians.
Speaker 3:And granted, it should be. Because, you know, this sounds really sacrilegious to say, but Christmas would mean nothing without Easter, really, if you think about it. I mean, reason we celebrate Christmas is because of what happened at Easter, you know? And so it contextualizes Easter. And, it's interesting to me how it's turned into this whatever it is now.
Speaker 3:You know you know how we are in America in particular. We like to commercialize just about anything we can.
Speaker 2:We can monetize it. We're gonna.
Speaker 3:Yeah. But I still think somewhere in there though, both Christmas and Easter, there's still the message somehow because I think people just acknowledge this is about Jesus. I mean, like, example, I was watching the news Saturday night. Was checking the you know, Saturday was weird with the weather. All of a sudden, it turns out it's like 10 degrees outside.
Speaker 3:I mean, we're just freezing. You know? You're like, what is thought it was beautiful. So anyway Yeah. Worse weather.
Speaker 3:I turned the news on that night, 10:00 news, to see what is the weather going to do? What's happening? Watching one of the local news channels here in DFW. And so the meteorologist is just saying, well, hello Texas. Guess what?
Speaker 3:You thought that summer had arrived. And guess what? We still have a little He kind of explained what all was going on. And then he said, well, let me just give you the projections for the rest of the next few days. So he puts up the next few days.
Speaker 3:And he said, and I know that everybody wants to know what's the weather going to be like on Easter. I know that everybody's asking that. So all of a sudden, this next few days comes up in Good Friday. It says on top of the weather prediction, Good Friday. And it has a cross, Good Friday written next to it and then Easter Sunday.
Speaker 2:And what does it have?
Speaker 3:I started to pause and take a photo of it I thought, here I'm watching just the random news channel in DFW. They recognized it. Good Friday, there's a cross.
Speaker 2:Yeah. They got it right. I mean, understood it.
Speaker 3:Isn't that fascinating? So I think even with all the Easter bunny and everything that comes with it all I
Speaker 1:do love Cadbury eggs.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I still think
Speaker 2:You know, our more, just for our listeners and friends that might not know this, the more high church, like, of Lent is repentant. It is, it's You would a not
Speaker 3:No, it's a
Speaker 2:There's not a lot of color.
Speaker 3:No, get made And into light black and
Speaker 2:you would not have an Easter egg hunt. You wouldn't have your hallelujahs until
Speaker 1:I don't think you actually can say hallelujahs You until can't.
Speaker 2:You can't. In fact, one of our
Speaker 3:Until Sunday.
Speaker 2:One of our peers that works at Anglican Church in Waco, do you know Stephanie Drummond? Yeah. Yep. She is the youth minister and maybe works with children as well, has the children bury their hallelujahs before Ash Wednesday. And they dig them back up
Speaker 3:for For Easter.
Speaker 2:Which is kind of interesting. So I have a little bit of that in me where it's like, I mean, I'm not that hard edged, but the appreciation of just the let's keep Lent
Speaker 3:reflective
Speaker 2:and not rush to the good news. Because the bad news is really why the good news is so good. And so I love that we do Good Friday. I love that we protect that and take it seriously.
Speaker 3:We do. It's powerful. I wasn't raised in that, you know, the free church tradition, particularly in the South where
Speaker 2:we're for That's kinda what I was getting at earlier. Like, the institutions of Holy Yes.
Speaker 3:You did not mention Because
Speaker 2:you didn't wanna be. That's right.
Speaker 3:I passed through what
Speaker 2:he didn't did. Wanna look like you were doing something to earn salvation, legalism, parts that.
Speaker 3:Our pastor was Catholic, but then it was theological. Seeing people, now you're gonna be at school this week. I just wanna let you all know, you kids, they're gonna be because we were in a Catholic community. We were in Little Italy, as it was called. You're gonna see your classmates.
Speaker 3:They're gonna have ashes on their heads. And I can remember our pastor saying, that means nothing, so don't even worry about it. Yeah. You've your sins have already been forgiven. You met Jesus.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. You don't worry about it. Mhmm. And I can promise you the last thing we were gonna have was a Good Friday service. You know, we had Palm Sunday at Easter.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Because a Good Friday service would
Speaker 3:It would just be it would it would be caving in, if you will, to that liturgical bent.
Speaker 2:Which makes it too workspace Correct. To performative. Yeah. And I get that. I mean, I I I respect that.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 2:Now I think the baby was thrown out with the bathwater, but I respect it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Obviously, I believe that.
Speaker 2:But at the time,
Speaker 3:I didn't know any better,
Speaker 2:and I'm not being critical about it.
Speaker 3:That's that's what we were.
Speaker 2:The respect for it is that their the intent was pure, think.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Just to distinguish us.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You
Speaker 3:know, this is not a works based thing, and and and I can't tell you how many times our pastors would say, I want you to notice we have a cross here in our sanctuary. Jesus is not
Speaker 2:on it.
Speaker 3:Because our Jesus is alive. He was raised from the dead. Well, as I got older and began to reflect on it, you know, I've to remind myself, well, you know, he was on it. I mean, he was on it. And so if you wanted to depict him on it, then I think it's okay because he actually was crucified.
Speaker 3:Now, if you want to somehow think that a crucifix, so to speak, is some kind of
Speaker 2:It yields power.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Whatever. Well, obviously, don't believe that, but I would also say to act like Jesus was it's almost like
Speaker 1:It's actually Muslim.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's almost like a clean cross, if you will.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because for me, if you skip from, and again, I'm not trying to be critical of people who had really solid intent to try to shepherd their people toward the right theology.
Speaker 3:Of course.
Speaker 2:But if you skip from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, and you don't go in kind of the valley, the hard part, the ugly part.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And I would tell you that we did talk about Jesus dying on the cross. Obviously, our pastors preached on that and all that, but it was just not done in a liturgical season because they didn't wanna confuse us. And so I can even remember as a kid, you know, going to school on Ash Wednesday. And and, you know, I'm I'm not proud of it, but I'm just saying poking fun at my Sure.
Speaker 3:Catholic buddies what are you doing, man? Jesus has already forgiven your sin. We didn't know enough about We just knew enough to make fun of each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's like the danger of ignorance. You just know enough to get trouble.
Speaker 1:But I love that we've now reached this place of like we recognize that there's actually a discipleship value, a formational value to intentionally walking through time. Yes. And so that journey for us started Ash Wednesday. Mhmm. It's carried through you know, the cross on our stage or on our platform has been draped in black.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 3:Now purple. This whole season. Now purple.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Be red. It'll be red
Speaker 3:Friday Friday night.
Speaker 1:It'll be red and then it'll be white. And there's a there's actually like a real value to doing that and you know, I think about in our community, in our context, know, you talk about in the Catholic community Jesus is on the cross all the time. Well, we live in a community that's increasingly Muslim. They actually they deny that Jesus was crucified. They just say, well, God just took him up.
Speaker 1:He's a prophet. Mhmm. No. And so, no.
Speaker 2:Dude suffered and died. That's right. It's real. The dude is our Lord and savior. Just to be clear.
Speaker 3:And he bled and died. That's right. And that's the gospel. That's what Paul says. You know, he suffered and died, was raised from the dead.
Speaker 3:So
Speaker 2:I wanna talk about sermon too, but one thing I pointed out to the staff today is is just trying to keep it in front of us is that it is holy week. Don't miss it. I know I hate that just late March, early April is always just busy in like a school sense, in a life, in a church calendar. It just is what it is. But there's a really good app.
Speaker 2:It's called Easter Now. It's blue. It has like a white cross and maybe a hill on it. I think I I downloaded it. Easter Now.
Speaker 2:You made a purchase
Speaker 3:just to get it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think it's helpful if you just want, mean, kind of live in a digital world. If you want some notifications each day with some good data, I say data, there's a map, and there's also the scriptures that point to. So, like, today, it's just one kind of push at ten a. M.
Speaker 2:That tells you what's going on on Holy Monday. I think Holy Tuesday is the same. Went
Speaker 3:Driving out the vendors, teaching the people.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Mhmm. And then but the Pixar's picking up, like, during the passion. There's there's several, like, Friday, you would get a lot of calendar or app pushes that walk you through the events of that day.
Speaker 3:And then
Speaker 1:I know our children's ministry and preschool ministry have family devotionals that they've put out so you can watch. They're really good. They're excellent. Oh, I
Speaker 2:need to
Speaker 3:They're really good.
Speaker 2:I'm glad you're saying that for me, for my sake.
Speaker 1:And on my like lazy parenting side Hit us with it. Life is real. Yeah. We This is endorsed by me not by our children's ministry necessarily but we use a resource called Lectio for families. It's a website.
Speaker 1:Just pulled it up as a shortcut on my phone but it's an audio kind of prayer scripture reading devotional aimed at probably kids more like kinder to fifth or sixth grade.
Speaker 2:So that kind of true elementary
Speaker 1:More elementary oriented but it it's eight to ten minutes. We do it on our commute to school. Perfect. So It's really good. We started, it walks through scripture, it guides your kids through prayer, very developed but it's doing holy week this week.
Speaker 2:Great.
Speaker 1:And so Really good. Like to have
Speaker 2:I fun on the would be remiss, did I use that right? I would be remiss to not point us to the daily bible readings.
Speaker 3:Yes. They're so good.
Speaker 2:Yes. So I'm not These aren't replacements for that. Kurt's done a really thoughtful job. Today's is really good. And I trust that tomorrow's the next day we'll
Speaker 3:be We're good.
Speaker 1:We're so blessed, Kurt. Rich.
Speaker 2:I've got this in me, we all do. It's not This makes it sound like, man, I'm the one waving a flag of like, it's Easter, Easter's coming but Liturgy. I just And it is, it's like confessions of just, I get so busy around this time of year that I'm tired and I know that, but it's holy week, you know, like don't miss moment. Don't miss it and here are all, here's a push app on your phone that's gonna get your attention and it's not a devotional on nightstand that I may or may not get to. It's just keep it in front of you however you
Speaker 3:need You're such a millennial. Know, you've a push app on your phone.
Speaker 2:I am a millennial.
Speaker 1:You get that push up now too.
Speaker 2:I do, I didn't. I know. And I live in the world, like any millennials, I think people like I I wish I didn't spend as much time on my phone. But I know that if something kinda comes up, at least I'll notice it. You know?
Speaker 2:So
Speaker 3:But and the good news is the the tools that are now available, that's what some of my pastor colleagues and I have talked about, older pastor colleagues, those of us who've been doing this for a while. Just how remarkable it is, what's available now for our people, discipleship wise, information wise. I mean, I think about I can remember, you know, when I was younger than y'all, but I'm in seminary, And I'm, you know, I'm trying to grapple with, what did Luther say about baptism? Because it it can be very confusing when you read Luther. The only option was to go to the library and pull whatever you could find and just actually sit down at a table or in a study carol and just read.
Speaker 3:Or find an article that was written in a journal and just try to determine what did Luther say. And I know it sounds crazy, but back then, I'm studying theological German. And so sometimes you'd even read one author who'd say, if you really want to understand this because of the way Luther wrote about it, the Lord's Supper and Baptism both can be very confusing. It's just better to read it in German because we're trying to capture So I'm sitting in a library reading
Speaker 1:Trying to get the real perspective.
Speaker 3:Because I have so much respect for Luther, I'm trying to understand why did he come to these conclusions? And we're all kind of laughing with each other now because it's like, what did Martin Luther believe about baptism? I can ask Siri. And that may not be the right answer, but at least you you have an answer. Can
Speaker 1:point me to some things.
Speaker 3:It's just fascinating to me that we used just do all that by hand. I'm not saying either one's better. Please don't hear me say that at all. I'm not advocating going back to having to do all that. But I just remember
Speaker 2:There's how pros and consolate it.
Speaker 3:I think now my people just have so much more access to things and things like this, like an Easter app, you know, that I would have never thought of. And yet there it is, and it looks really good. I've just looked at it today. But these daily bible readings that that we're sending out
Speaker 1:Just straight to email.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Really good. So
Speaker 1:fbca.org/biblereadings?
Speaker 2:I think so. I'm subscribed so If you go
Speaker 1:to the website hit the learn go to the like sidebar, hit the learn button then there's a bible readings. You can enter your email.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Yeah. It'll be posted there if you don't want it in your email, you could just read it on the website. But we just go ahead and hit that subscribe button.
Speaker 3:And ours. It's us. It's us together journey.
Speaker 2:Very much indigenous to, like, the sermon Up
Speaker 3:to 700 people now. They kept subscribed.
Speaker 1:Love it.
Speaker 3:We got 700 adults who are using this.
Speaker 2:And a lot of them actually open the emails because we So will see some of it's very good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the access that's available to us today.
Speaker 2:Ought we talk about Palm Sunday?
Speaker 3:Palm Sunday was this
Speaker 1:past Sunday. Abiding in Christ. Life on the vine.
Speaker 2:You know what was fun? What
Speaker 3:was fun was the first two services were very different, as they typically are. You know, the first service, we had the Chi Alpha Choir, that's our youth choir, singing, and they are Christ ambassadors, Chi
Speaker 2:Alpha.
Speaker 3:And then you had the younger, the more grade school children's choir, they were the palm wavers. And so while the choir, the orchestra, the youth choir was all singing, you had this little more of an orchestrated, it was still fun, lively with the grade school children. Coming It's always lively when you give palm fronds to children. They were members of our choir, of our jam ministry. Know what I mean?
Speaker 3:Had been rehearsed and all that. And so they did all that. It was really sweet. Was fun. My granddaughter was in it, we loved it.
Speaker 3:I took videos and
Speaker 2:all that. It was just a ton of life, just was just
Speaker 3:And you walking get to the second service.
Speaker 2:Oh, sorry. I got to the But second that was a ton of life You go to
Speaker 3:the second service, and instead of that, we just said, okay, all the children, there are palm fronds here in front of the church. Why don't y'all all just come get them and let's just encircle the church? And next thing you know, it was just so different.
Speaker 2:Every aisle, all
Speaker 3:these children's everywhere.
Speaker 2:Everywhere, traffic jams. It was awesome. Was awesome.
Speaker 3:It was. And it's very celebratory. And I think our people loved both of them. Both of the services were very powerful to me. And yeah, John 15.
Speaker 3:You know? I mean, Designed Flourish.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. I
Speaker 3:love I love that page in our Bible. I'm glad it's there because I think that sometimes we, miss if we're not careful. We're doctrinally focused, you know, and so belief oriented. Mhmm. And also, we're very ethically inclined.
Speaker 3:But the subjective side of all this of actually relating to Jesus personally is is what I find in John 15. And that's just, yeah. It's very rich. And I just was hopeful that we were able to agree together as a church family. You don't wanna miss this right here.
Speaker 3:You need to relate to Jesus. You're reflecting on truth. We do that. Yeah. But you're relating to a person, you know, and you're walked literally walking with Jesus.
Speaker 3:And I know that for some people that sounds a little odd, you know, they, well, you know, I'm too intellectual for that, but you're not. Mhmm. You know? This is that inner soul life that we all have. When you wake up first thing in the morning, you go to bed at night and everything's calm and quiet, and there you are before the Lord, just you and him, you know, or you find that time during the day or in the car or wherever it is.
Speaker 3:And I realize I'm in a different stage in life than you are. I don't wake up to crying children.
Speaker 1:I don't either anymore, thankfully.
Speaker 2:No, now I I don't even wake up to
Speaker 1:happy Sometimes I wake up children and then they cry.
Speaker 2:That's what I say. Now I wake up crying Yeah. I don't Groggy little boys.
Speaker 3:So my life is very different. And I get that. But I've been in y'all's shoes. So I've I've lived your life, and I I know how that feels. And so you've gotta find it and capture it as you can.
Speaker 3:But there's just no replacement for it. Mine
Speaker 2:is, I mean, just to be transparent, my evenings, I have a lot more agency over the way I spend my time before I go to bed than I do my mornings. That's just the nature
Speaker 3:of But
Speaker 2:that's time that I can choose how I spend that.
Speaker 1:There's nothing magic like, yes, mornings are great, but
Speaker 2:is something about resetting like setting your day in the right way. Right. But that may look very short and simple for me.
Speaker 3:Very quickly.
Speaker 2:It may be circling back to what I spent more time with the evening But I'm also not a morning person. This was true before I had kids. Yeah. I just have a better excuse now. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And it's I you know, it's that first Thessalonians five seventeen, life. Pray constantly and that doesn't mean you're on your knees Right. Every second of the day. It does mean that you, in every second of the day, turn your attention to God's presence with you Yes. Know In whatever you're doing.
Speaker 3:I Posture, spirit.
Speaker 2:I think before before we turned the mics on, the reason we were joking about me speaking to the women in this is because I spoke on John 15 as well to the women on Saturday, and one of the metaphors that I was trying to kinda work out with them, again, did not get my they didn't get my illustrations, but I think when I scrapped those and just talked about, like, the truth of the scriptures, maybe they hung with me.
Speaker 3:Should get the Bible.
Speaker 2:But just the idea that we look at, sometimes Sunday mornings, as when we meet with Jesus
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we get our battery filled. Yeah. And then you go out through the week, and the battery's maybe getting run down, you gotta get back at church, which is not all bad, I think there's value of being together. So Of course. Both sides.
Speaker 2:Right? We need to worship together. We need to be in and fellowship. So church is very important. But But the Holy Spirit doesn't live at First Baptist Arlington.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And so what I talked to them about is, like, don't think of it as like a laptop where you charge it and then Like think about it as a laptop with no battery. Like it has to stay plugged in to work.
Speaker 3:That's a great way to
Speaker 2:put And as you go, like the spirit is the plug in. I mean in this, the vine and branches is the vine, that the spirit is keeps you connected.
Speaker 1:If Jesus had incarnated today, think that John 15 would sound more like this.
Speaker 2:Yeah or a WiFi router
Speaker 3:that You has have to use something we could relate to.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well like or it's not that you plug into WiFi
Speaker 3:We're not growing great
Speaker 2:I mean you small plug into
Speaker 3:We're not great.
Speaker 2:Like when I went to Stephen f Austin in 2004, I had a laptop, there was no Wi Fi in the dorm. You plugged in your laptop into the blue ethernet cable. Mhmm. And you took a pen and paper to class. Yep.
Speaker 2:Most of us.
Speaker 3:Those were the days.
Speaker 2:So you could use some Wi Fi metaphors, and I've done that with college students too, like tapping into the source or whatever. But I think, like, when we talk about the vine and the branches, you talk about Jesus as a person. Like, you don't just come to church to charge your battery, but you do, so I don't wanna diminish that, I'm not saying, like, it's just me and Jesus, because then, you know, I'm not preaching my sermon. But I got into the y'all, you know, the great misfortune of our day is that English doesn't have NIV translation didn't think English had a good enough word for you you guys.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 2:You all. And we miss so much.
Speaker 1:Particularly in John 15. Some translation. When
Speaker 2:you look at John 15, he's talking to his closest disciples. It's y'all. It's all y'all language. Love one another. There's joy, all that.
Speaker 2:So anyway, but I think that's the For my millennial mind Mhmm. You don't you don't lose Like, the spirit is the gift of the spirit. And I and then I talked about John seven later where I love it because Jesus talks about rivers of living water will flow through you. Mhmm. And then that's the red letter.
Speaker 2:And then it goes black letter. John says, that's the Holy Spirit, but they haven't given it yet. Like, he tells you exactly what he means. I'm like, thank you, John. I know it.
Speaker 2:That's the Holy Spirit. Like, it'll flow through you. That's not Sunday morning. No. That's not just a theological I'm pointing to my head for those on the mic.
Speaker 2:This is just brain. It's the whole spirit. It's the whole soul engaged in this work, which is what you're trying to get at, I think. I've got words in your mouth, but as a receiver of your sermon, think that's what you're trying
Speaker 3:get at. Exactly right. Because I think the I mean, we you know, Sunday morning, the theology of that text, I I feel like I at least needed to address simply because
Speaker 2:It's alright.
Speaker 3:They killed Jesus over this kind of stuff. You know? They they killed him over it. I mean, he you can't claim authority over the temple. Not in first century Israel.
Speaker 3:You just can't do that. You can't take over the Sabbath. You can't claim to be Israel. You just can't do that. I mean, that's what he did.
Speaker 3:I am the true vine now. Well, those kinds of teachings, you know, as they circulated among the people, those are
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's when they started plotting to kill
Speaker 3:upsetting. You're engaging every institution there was in claiming the promised fulfillment in you now. It's hard for us to grasp the radical nature of that, but it does change everything, and at least there's so many other conversations that I didn't have time to get into so many more.
Speaker 2:What do you kind of preface about? Said, like, we can't tackle
Speaker 3:I mean, for example, you talk about the land. Well, the the vine was planted in a certain
Speaker 2:This is tell me is tell me more stuff.
Speaker 3:Go, go. It was. It's in a geographical location. God said, I took you out of Egypt. This is where I put you, from the river to the sea.
Speaker 3:This is the vine. Now Jesus comes along and says, Well, actually I'm the vine. That's me. And the glory of God is going to fill the whole earth. Okay.
Speaker 3:Now all of a sudden, I've got a profound theological dilemma I gotta deal What what do I do with that? Because the what land? Well, the land where the vine is now and the branches all live. Okay. Well, where is that?
Speaker 3:Well, then all of that is holy. Okay? So what are you saying? Well, what I'm saying is the whole earth is going to be redeemed. My glory is for the whole earth, not just that one piece of property.
Speaker 3:Well, that's a whole another theological conversation, but it's in this mix where Jesus wouldn't have said it. He wouldn't have chosen that metaphor. He'd chose something else.
Speaker 1:And there's so much there. It's so rich. And I think, you know, there are times you hear people who say, well, the New Testament's so different than the Old Testament. They have completely different messages. They're separate.
Speaker 1:Right. No. This is Jesus is fulfilling the Abrahamic covenant that through you, all families of the earth will be blessed. Exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so the continuity is there. I mean, it's beautiful.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's almost like the New Testament would not make sense. At least it wouldn't it wouldn't be as meaningful
Speaker 2:Oh, you'd miss?
Speaker 3:Without the
Speaker 2:Old You'd miss?
Speaker 3:You could you you
Speaker 1:could get some of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. But but I'm the true vine. I mean, I get that. Okay. I'm a branch.
Speaker 3:No. But actually, no. I'm the vine now. This is what God is doing
Speaker 2:in The Passover. Mary and
Speaker 3:Yeah. Mean, wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You wouldn't know any of that.
Speaker 3:That's right. I am the good shepherd. I'm the bread that's actually come down from him.
Speaker 2:I am. Which again, is in the festival of the booths, tabernacles. Exactly. That's the background. So if you don't know that they were wandering in the wilderness.
Speaker 2:That's right. You don't know the story of the Exodus, one, shame is such a good story. But two, you miss a lot of what Jesus I was really trying to come to
Speaker 3:love The Chosen because I think Dallas Jenkins is trying to humanize it. You're seeing these conversations with all these different people. And I get it. People get frustrated with him because he adds things to it. But I think he's just trying to create a human context for all of this that helps us somehow think what was this really like for somebody like this to be saying these things.
Speaker 2:Serious and as faithful as he can be. He takes it seriously to try to
Speaker 3:do that. Do you depict Jesus? The other movies about Jesus, you're afraid to do anything with Jesus. Know? So there are some movies that we've made about Jesus where all he does is just quote what's in the scripture.
Speaker 3:And I get that. That just lets you know.
Speaker 2:That's a bit wooden.
Speaker 3:They're a little nervous about it. Whereas, you know, you got Dallas Jenkins going when somebody says, wow, that's different, and then Jesus looks at you and says, well, prepare for different. That's not in the bible, but that sounds to me like something Jesus think that's
Speaker 2:would the same language, isn't it?
Speaker 3:I'm just get ready. Get ready for different. So, so even this conversation to me with Jesus and his disciples, I'm just so glad John was there to hear this and be able to recollect it through the spirit's help and communicate it. I'm sure there were more truths Jesus taught that night. They were together all night.
Speaker 3:But man, I'm so glad we got this one. And then the whole conversation about what is the fruit? Because if you're going to bear fruit, which is what this text says over and over and over and over and over, you can bear fruit, bear much fruit, bear fruit to my father's glory. This why I chose you to bear fruit, fruit that lasts. Again, we have some time And I think there's something to it.
Speaker 3:We've put it in our ethics, so to speak. Our behavior is going to produce fruit. People are going to be saved. We're going to do good works. I think all that's okay.
Speaker 3:I just don't think that was the core message, though. I think the core message was what's happening inside of
Speaker 2:you.
Speaker 3:That's where the fruit really And this is gonna be expressed in you, through you, and all the rest of that will come.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really outpouring of
Speaker 1:Yeah, division is Jesus.
Speaker 3:Yes, that's what
Speaker 1:I think. At its core, it's just all Jesus.
Speaker 3:And who he was. And that's why I think when Paul describes the fruit of the spirit, well, John fourteen fifteen and sixteen is about the spirit, what Jesus is saying to us about our relationship with him.
Speaker 2:Apart from me, you can do Exactly.
Speaker 3:I think the fruit of the spirit then to me connects so powerfully to this. I believe Jesus singles that out. Love each other. I'm going give you my peace. I'm going to give you my joy.
Speaker 3:He's mentioning the very fruit. He could have mentioned them all. He just highlighted it a little bit. And so to me, my natural proclivities as a human do not produce the fruit of the spirit in me. They just don't.
Speaker 3:In fact, I would argue it's probably the opposite. I'm not naturally going to express all of them. Just not.
Speaker 2:You might do it occasionally. Maybe if do you it, you couldn't sustain it. You might be able to conjure
Speaker 1:up
Speaker 2:the I think
Speaker 1:rest you could the be an accidental saint every once in a
Speaker 2:while. I might be able to exercise self control for a minute.
Speaker 3:Of course.
Speaker 2:But not the way the spirit could shape me into this.
Speaker 3:Not like this.
Speaker 2:No, it's a joke. Or the peace.
Speaker 3:So different, so profound. That's why I just wanna make sure people just don't miss this, that this is the heart of it, this is how it actually happens. And it's actually real. It's not just something we believe. You know, it's real.
Speaker 3:You actually do walk with Jesus. That's why I love some of our senior saints. I said that Sunday morning. Some of them, man, have been walking with Jesus for a
Speaker 2:long time. Of them are
Speaker 3:awesome people and I'm watching them navigate really hard transitions, challenging seasons of life. And they're able to do it because of what's on the inside of them. Not necessarily that they have all the ingenuity in the world, but God's just done a work in them and they're able somehow to take that and apply it. It becomes the lens through which they see everything. That's who
Speaker 2:I wanna They're just spiritually formed people. Yes. They've just
Speaker 3:It makes such a difference. And a calm to them. We all need
Speaker 2:that,
Speaker 3:because we don't know what life is going to bring.
Speaker 2:So good.
Speaker 3:It's just, I mean, you know, Holy Week. I mean, look at look at what happened during Holy Week to the disciples. What all transpired? I mean, all the plots and machinations around them and these encounters. I'm just wondering what must it have felt like for them.
Speaker 3:It's like everywhere you turn, it's the heroes of of the faith, if you will, that are talking to Jesus. Jesus not only talking to John and Jane Doe, he is doing that. He's talking to the teachers, the leaders, the guys that wear the robes that we all make way when they These are people we've looked at our whole lives. I've never had a conversation with Nicodemus. Why would I?
Speaker 3:I'm a fisherman.
Speaker 1:Why would he talk to me?
Speaker 2:He has no idea who I am.
Speaker 3:Next thing you know, I'm kind of hanging out with Nicodemus, listening to Jesus.
Speaker 2:It just turns everything upside down. It's
Speaker 3:completely mind boggling for them. I'm just trying to imagine. There they are walking with Jesus. Next thing you know, here's half the Sanhedrin. You've looked at these men.
Speaker 3:Your daddy has told you about these men.
Speaker 2:There they are.
Speaker 3:Let tell you who they are. That's Caiaphas. He's the hyper. You'll never meet him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, two of have baseball cards.
Speaker 3:Exactly. You'll never know him. Man, gosh, if one of my sons was to
Speaker 2:He'd be in his presence.
Speaker 3:To just even meet Caiaphas. All of sudden you've got Jesus. That's who he's talking to every day for this whole week. I'm just thinking, what must it have been like for them?
Speaker 2:I can't. Holy Week from a disciple's perspective. Powerful. Wild.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So wild.
Speaker 2:May I have that faith. And I know they messed up but they still
Speaker 1:They got
Speaker 2:it back. Even that faith though I would aspire to.
Speaker 3:They came through. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I would. I just feel like I would have missed the whole thing. I think I would have just been one of the crowd. I would Feed me feed me show me miracles and then it's getting weird I'm out. I mean I you know I just can't think much more highly of what I would do but man the disciples they gave it they gave their life to it and they got spooked and they couldn't figure it out.
Speaker 1:Some of the disciples stuck around.
Speaker 2:But they they figured it out.
Speaker 3:You got old John standing at the cross.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right? You got a couple women there too. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Got John standing Yeah. Women come out on top.
Speaker 3:But but I
Speaker 2:I just don't know that I would have had it. It's it's a humbling thing to put yourself But it's also in cool
Speaker 3:to me to watch Jesus, how he just encounters all of them. And I realize he's the son of God. I get it. But just trying to see that and watch him do it as a human just go toe to toe with the most educated, astute group of people really in that whole area. And people, many of them, I believe well intentioned, a lot of them not, but many of them
Speaker 2:Some genuine. Some trying
Speaker 3:to catch
Speaker 2:me in
Speaker 3:a trap. Joseph of Arimathea. What gets into Joseph of Arimathea that he watches it all play out? There he is a Sadducee. So he's in cahoots with the Romans or he wouldn't be a Sadducee.
Speaker 3:He's in the priestly class or he wouldn't be a Sadducee. He's wealthy or he wouldn't be a Sadducee. Has the seat of honor at every table. He watches it all play out. Can you imagine?
Speaker 3:He goes home and tells his wife, Hey, think I'm going go get the body of this guy they just crucified. We're gonna go ahead and bury him I'm in our family just wondering, what was that conversation like at home? Joseph, dude, you put him in there. You can't even let them know you know him.
Speaker 2:This guy threatens it our whole way of being.
Speaker 3:Yes. And he just says, no. I'm gonna I'm gonna go get his body
Speaker 2:We're gonna do the right thing.
Speaker 3:We're gonna give him a proper burial. I'll tell I'll you what. I'm gonna get Nicodemus to go with me. I'm just thinking Yeah. Come on.
Speaker 3:I mean, And
Speaker 2:this is where I'm like, don't miss it. It's Holy Week. Don't miss it. It's Holy Week. Don't miss It's it.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna inform you.
Speaker 3:I don't know what to say about Nicodemus in John three. I'm a little disappointed in him in John three. But, again, but I understand. My gosh. He's he's the man has a lot of things to work through.
Speaker 3:I wish in John three he'd have said, we take these clothes off, these priestly clothes. I'm following I'm I'm going with you. He doesn't do that. But, man, let's give him a little credit. Those those are two really early believers kind of.
Speaker 3:I don't know what to call them. But the fact that they would even go and get the body of our Lord, know, think about who who who's actually you know, we drink the little cup, but there are very few people that have touched the blood of Jesus. I mean, the real blood of Jesus. Those two men did on our behalf. I wanna believe they're in heaven because I wanna thank them for what they did for us.
Speaker 3:Think about that. They took the blood of Jesus and cleansed his body and prepared him to be buried properly, and then gave his own burial ground for Jesus. I don't know y'all. I always marvel at it when I read that story about those two guys.
Speaker 2:We ought we ought I mean, here's my prayer for this week. Can we see it afresh? Yeah. Can we see it afresh? May it not be so worn Yeah.
Speaker 2:Slow down. So familiar that we just skip right over it.
Speaker 3:And it's all about Jesus. It is really all about it. It's not about Joseph, not about Nicodemus, but they were real guys that were there. And I feel like we just I do feel like we run roughshod past
Speaker 2:I think them we need their characters, if I can call them that. We need those people that we can kinda put ourselves in and be formed by it and convicted by it.
Speaker 3:It's like I hope can't do hope you're in heaven because I don't know what heaven's gonna be like, but I wanna be one of the guys that goes up and knocks on Joseph's door and go, hey, man.
Speaker 2:Tell us everything.
Speaker 3:Don't know if anybody said anything to you, but on behalf of all Christians, thank you for handling the body of our Lord so respectfully.
Speaker 2:Thank you. At such a cost.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Such a cost. Right. And then the women, what are they thinking? They're getting up that morning on Sunday thinking, we're gonna go down the tomb.
Speaker 3:And what are they gonna do? The the tomb is covered with a massive stone.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 3:What are they going to do? Nobody's going believe anything they say to begin with, so what are they going to do? Do what It's almost like they just don't know, but they are going to go and honor the body of Jesus. I want to tell them thank you for doing what's right. There's so many people in the story, you just go, Man, thank y'all for doing this.
Speaker 3:I love it. It's powerful to me every year. I'm always humbled by the journey. I try to read through it every year. I'm reading through John because I've assigned these daily Bible readings, but I like to read the other guys as well this week in particular.
Speaker 2:And the app can help. That's one of those. Do the daily Bible readings
Speaker 3:Of course. But you can read more than that.
Speaker 2:Need to
Speaker 3:read more of your Bible. It is Holy Week.
Speaker 1:We we would encourage that.
Speaker 2:So speaking of Holy Week at First Baptist Arlington.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:We do have kind of quote unquote normal Wednesday night activities with midweek.
Speaker 3:I think so.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. It's all open
Speaker 3:for Christmas. Yeah.
Speaker 2:We're getting yeah. We'll have come if on Wednesday nights, we'll find a place for you.
Speaker 1:Life is normal through Wednesday.
Speaker 2:Right. But
Speaker 3:Prayer breakfast that morning.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The city of Arlington prayer breakfast.
Speaker 3:One of prayers.
Speaker 2:I am. I got roped into praying publicly. I do pray. That's yeah. If you want a ticket to that, those are still available.
Speaker 2:You can Google that. Mhmm. But Friday night here at the church, 06:30. Mhmm. I want you to hear this, parents, or if you have young young kids in your orb.
Speaker 2:Thoughtfully, our KC in the children's ministry is doing an extended kind of worship care with programming for ages birth through third grade.
Speaker 1:We were corrected in stop meeting. They are doing full on
Speaker 2:It is programming.
Speaker 1:Children's ministry. Yes. Full
Speaker 2:Thank you. Good Friday is heavy and so the fourth graders and up are gonna be in the sanctuary with us and the kiddos First
Speaker 1:through third will be upstairs in the PCB.
Speaker 2:Yes and then kinda where you would drop them off on Sunday. So you're like I don't know what to do with my kids, if you've got first through sorry, birth through third graders, go straight to the Children's building. Get them settled and then go to worship with your fourth grade and up.
Speaker 3:Got it.
Speaker 2:And we'll take the Lord's Supper and have a meaningful time and and get our spirits right, hopefully, you know, Lord willing, get our spirits right to walk through the weekend and celebrate Easter on Sunday. Sunday is quote unquote normal times.
Speaker 1:Correct. Yes.
Speaker 2:Not necessarily normal in the sense of expectation but, eight thirty and eleven Eight
Speaker 3:thirty and eleven.
Speaker 2:Bible studies in between.
Speaker 1:I would really encourage you to invite someone to join you for Easter. Real easy invite. It's a super easy invite and we learned this last week that people are like 80% more likely to join you if you invite them to get breakfast or coffee with you before or lunch with you afterwards. So I don't know what your family Easter lunch plans are but invite people to join you for breakfast before or lunch afterwards.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Not just the passive like, I'll be at Maybe. Church, you wanna meet Hey, we wanna ride together, we can
Speaker 3:get a cup
Speaker 2:of coffee on the way. Yep. That's got a much higher This is Gary Stidham teaching Yep. Who, if we had longer, we'd talk about that. We'll do it a time.
Speaker 3:Awesome.
Speaker 1:So do it.
Speaker 2:So I hope to see all of you on Friday night. Let's do it. Without excuse. Let's do it. Be there or be square.
Speaker 3:Get ready. Alright. Get you ready for Easter Sunday.
Speaker 2:Happy Holy Week. See y'all next week. Thanks for listening to the Tell Me More podcast today. You can subscribe to this podcast on your app of choice, or you can visit us at fbca.org to find out more information about the podcast and our church. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2:Have a good day.