Latest / Wesley at FSU & TSC / "Healing Peace" | Sunday Service | April 12, 2026

Transcript

"Healing Peace" | Sunday Service | April 12, 2026 · Wesley at FSU & TSC

• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: On Friday night, this last Friday night, um, I came to the first 45 minutes of the formal.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Friday's my day off normally, but you know, for you, I'll put on a suit.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: The problem with it was that uh the formal started at seven.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: A bunch of people took photos out there for 45 minutes.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: And um at 8.07 p.m., though, splashdown happened for Orion.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh right here.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Can we give it a they are back?
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: They are back.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Splashdown happened at 8.07.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: And earlier that afternoon, I had told my my two wonderful little girls that are eight and almost six years old.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Dylan's birthday party is this coming Saturday, and her birthday is next week.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: She is stoked.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: I told them that I would go watch the splashdown with them because it's a big deal when this thing goes to the moon and then comes back.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so we uh I went home and I made it right at 8 07.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, isn't it crazy that we can send a capsule full of human beings from the surface of the earth up?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if they go over because they start the orbit of the earth and then they kind of go around Earth.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Then we send them 250,000 miles to the moon.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: They then circle around the moon and using mostly only the gravitational pool of both the moon and the earth, it goes all the way around the moon and then comes back here and then lands at the exact right place that we wanted it to at the exact right time.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: It is a feat of modern engineering, and we haven't done it for 50 years because it was too expensive.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're about to do it a lot more.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was amazing watching this capsule come down.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Did you know that it comes down, as it's coming down, it comes down at 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason for this is I am not a scientist, but the reason for this is that the air is underneath it, and the air actually has like density to it.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like air is a thing, right?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just like this see-through thing that we we perceive of it as.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so the air can't get out of the way fast enough because it's coming down at 25,000 miles per hour, which is way faster than you can drive your car.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it's coming down so fast that it's creating this heat, right, that's surrounding it.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so what I learned this week is that they put this shield, this heat shield, around it right over here, and then it kind of burns up, like it just completely burns up to save the people that are on the inside.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: So this is what it looks like beforehand, and here's what it looks like afterward.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's been through a few things, you know what I'm saying?
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's been through a lot.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Then I started learning about some of the uh the astronauts as well.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Did you know that even in just 14 days, they were up there for 10, but in 14 days, it is possible to lose 20% of your muscle mass just by being in space for 14 days.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Do you remember the people that were up there almost a year, right?
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine the amount of workouts and exercise they had to do just to maintain the bodies that they went up there with?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: The thing about space that we're learning is that it shifts you and changes you.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: It was pretty cool watching this like modern feats change.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking about this as uh they were landing and as we're landing at toward the end of the school year, about how much shift happens every year just in the college world.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to do me a favor.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: It is now April.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to think back to August.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Who were you friends with in August?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Who were your closest friends?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: What were your strongest relationships?
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: You're probably able to think of a few people that you talked to in August that you don't even remember the last time you talked to them.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it's now April, hasn't been that long.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a uh senior, junior, think about your freshman year, your first time here.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: The people that you were friends with then, the relationships you, the things that you thought were important then, maybe your major.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Think about all the things that are kind of that that have shifted over that last several years.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: For some of you, two, three, four, five, six years.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's shift your who you are, what you wore, what you thought was important, the things that you studied, the people that you surrounded yourselves with have shifted in that time.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: I tell you, I get the 30,000-foot view of this all the time, and I get to see it uh as you go through your life here in college.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's sometimes hard when you're in the first person perspective to see it.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: But from if you zoom out for a second, it's really cool to see how you've shifted and changed.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: But let me be honest, a lot of it is for the better, and some of it is not.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: I would say that it is very likely that you come out at the end of a school year and at the end of a college career being a little bit beat up.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Being a little bit scarred, being a little bit hurt.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: The things that you heard people say about you, the things that you heard people that you trusted say about somebody else, the friendships that broke, that you always thought were gonna be great, and then they weren't so much.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Just a little bit bruised, just a little bit beaten.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Wanna take us to John's gospel this morning.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is in the 20th chapter.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is right after the resurrection of Jesus, which is what we talked about last week, by the way, Easter.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna read just three verses this morning.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And usually on this Sunday, we talk about Thomas, the doubting disciple, who's like, I don't believe it's him until I've touched it.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: We're not gonna touch Thomas this morning at all.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about the section right before him, okay?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is John, the 20th chapter, starting in the 19th verse.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Here now the reading of God's word.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: It was still the first day of the week.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that evening, while the disciples were behind closed doors, because they were afraid of the Jewish authorities, Jesus came and stood among them, and he said, Peace be with you.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: When the disciples saw the Lord, they were filled with joy.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said to them again, Peace be with you, as the Father sent me, so I am sending you.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Then he breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray over the preaching of God's word.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Oh God, your word is a lamp into our feet, and it's a light into our path.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: May it speak to us and speak through us for the establishment of your kingdom on this earth.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And oh God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight and in your sight alone, O God.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: You are our rock and you are our redeemer.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: We love you.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: We love you because you first loved us.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: We pray this in your name.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: The disciples, they'd been through some, you know what I'm saying?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the week before they went from welcoming him in and the triumphal entry and laying out down their cloaks and saying, Hosanna, Hosanna, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, welcome in.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Hosanna, save us, O Jesus.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: This is what they're saying.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus goes through that period of the last week of his life where he ends up eating with them, instituting the Holy Communion, the Lord's Supper.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: He sits there and he washes their feet.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden he goes to the garden to pray.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And he prays God.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: If there's any way, take this cup away from me, but not my will, but yours be done.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh the authorities come and they grab him.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Peter, who's with them, tries to cut off the ear of a guy named Malchus who's trying to protect the Roman authorities.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, Put away your sword, what has to be done is done.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh put away your sword.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you live by the sword, you die by the sword.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then they take him and they put him on this fake trial where they kind of played around with trying to do justice.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't because he was guilty of nothing.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Even Pilate goes, I'm washing my hands of this, this is not of me.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then they take him and then they give him the most ultimate death that is possible, death on a cross.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Where you lay there, hang there, and asphyxiate to death.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: Painfully.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then they took him down and they put him in a tomb.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then they waited.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: I don't actually think they were waiting.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, in hindsight, we can look back and be like, they were in the waiting zone.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: No, they were just in the grieving zone.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: They were just in the grieving zone.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: In the time period in which they laid him in the tomb.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Peter had denied Jesus not once, not twice, but three times.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Judas, who had turned him over, was gone.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Judas had already taken his own life.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: The disciples scattered because they were very scared of what was going to happen to them.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then on the third day, the women are going to the tomb to try to take care of the body because that's what they had to do, right?
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: They're taking care of the body, and then all of a sudden they go to the tomb and the tomb is empty.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: So they're thinking, not only did we see our Lord, our friend, uh killed in front of us, but now all of a sudden they've stolen his body?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they've been through some stuff, right?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Then eventually he makes himself known to them.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: He starts appearing to the different people.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the disciples, many of which, by the way, didn't believe the word of the women.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: The disciples are in this room.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the scriptures tell us that the door is locked for fear of the Jewish authorities.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to picture how scared they must have been.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: That they're behind a locked door, and within them is a group of people who they may or may not trust.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: You ever been with a group of friends and you're like, I'm not sure if I trust them?
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure if I believe what that person is saying.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's a rough room, you know what I'm saying?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's a rough moment.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little like a group chat you can't get out of, you know?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like the door's locked.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then the scripture doesn't give much information.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't say, oh, Peter went and unlocked the door and opened it.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't say anything like that.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: It just says that Jesus came in.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's all it says.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: He came in and greeted them.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Do you remember the first thing he says to them?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Peace be with you.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Peace be with you.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: From that moment until today, still a common greeting in the Christian world.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: We say, My brothers and sisters, my friends, peace be with you.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Peace be with you.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Would have been a little weird.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Again, not sure if they understood or completely got what was happening.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: This would have been very strange.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: But he comes in perhaps through a locked door, magic trick, right?
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm here.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: He can do everything.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: He's Jesus.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: So uh okay, he's in here.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: That would have been a little overwhelming.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Also, they saw him die, right?
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like a little strange.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: So they're going through the emotions that they're going through and also watching this thing that can't be real happening.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then he's there, he says, peace be with you, and he shows them his scars.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Scars, scars, scars, where he was pierced through the side by the Roman soldier.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Shows them his scars.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: I love that his greeting is peace.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because peace is the gift that starts it all.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Peace is the gift that starts it all.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Have you noticed that there's no like reconciliation among the disciples at this point?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: That it's still kind of a mess.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's not this like, oh, I forgive you, or oh, I forgive you, or Peter, yeah, you're gonna be our leader, but you did deny him three times.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: The rooster crowed, right?
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like, there's no there's no moment in this.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: His beginning is peace.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the end point, it's the gift that comes from Jesus.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you, if you're in a place in your life where you're like, man, I've been beaten up, I've been bruised, there's a lot going on in my mind.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's people I don't trust anymore.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's relationships that are strained, there's school and academics that are like not doing well.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Let me just tell you that thing that you're looking for, it's peace.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: You're looking for peace.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're not looking for everything to be tied up in a nice bow.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: You're looking for peace.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that peace is not anything you can do for yourself.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've ever had a friendship that you tried to reconcile.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's borderline impossible to try to reconcile a broken friendship.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: What you're looking for is the starting point of peace.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot about the scars part of it.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Why does Jesus show them the scars?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: Is it to prove that it's really him?
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, probably on some sort of practical level.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: That makes sense.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, something happens, a weird magic trick happens, and I gotta prove to you that it happened.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I guess.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'll prove to you that it's actually my body.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: The theologians love this.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like, no, it's a resurrected body, right?
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: We gotta make sure that's not just his soul, it's a resurrected body.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Totally true, totally true.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that that's why he shows them his scars.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: I got a feeling that if I'm the disciple and I'm just I've been beat up, I've been pushed down, and I'm just at this place where I'm like, God, can we just get over this?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm scared that the Jewish authorities are going to come take me.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: He shows up, he gives them peace, and then he says, Look at my scars.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, I really feel like he's saying, if you're looking for peace in your life, I've been there.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: I've been there.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you're looking for peace, something that only comes from Jesus, something that you cannot pull yourself, something that you're like, I just feel like my life is desperately needing of something other than the normality that I've been living in.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: I've been there.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is a transformative moment for them.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: I've been there.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: You ever had a friend when you've been going through it?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: You ever had a friend like put their arm around you?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Say, man, I get it.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: I get it.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: I've been there.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm here.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Can I can I show you where I got hurt too?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Can I show you where I was scarred too?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you, uh, perhaps uh the most transformative uh story that I I can tell in this realm.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I've sort of told this story before.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: I I have changed some details uh to I just don't want it ever getting back to the normal people because I have no way to contact them.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: But um a transformative experience for me where I saw the peace of Jesus at work.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh when I was in graduate school, I was the pastoral intern at the Wesley uh at Duke University.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so it was pretty cool.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: And um, they're a lot smaller group, maybe maybe another big week would be like 30 or so.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: And we kind of existed, kind of like most campus ministries do.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: We have a couple of nights a week that we would get together.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Our worship was on Sunday evenings, and we would meet in Duke, uh the Goodson Chapel, like the Duke Divinity Chapel, and we'd have some, you know, kind of stripped down music, nothing like this.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it was it was cool, it was fun, and uh got to know a lot of people.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: We'd have a dinner beforehand, which is always good.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Free food, right, is always great.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so we would do that, and then on Wednesday nights, we would gather in the basement of Duke Chapel.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Duke Chapel is a different chapel, it's the giant chapel in the middle of the campus, and we would gather in the basement there in the Wesley office, which was not very big, much smaller than even this little atrium area of there, like much smaller than that.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And we would all kind of gather there in the office and we would hear a sermon from either the the pastor or from the pastoral intern or from a student, and uh and then we would receive holy communion together.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: We called that service Eucharist, that's the fancy word for communion in the in in the kind of Greek language.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: So uh Eucharist is what we called it, and it was a beautiful time, you know, you know, dark candles, awesome, right?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's amazing to like go through community, that's why we do it here as as uh often as we do it, because it's amazing to be can in community with each other and receive communion together.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's something healing about that.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so we were sitting there now.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: As is common, now stop me if you feel like this isn't common, okay.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: But as is common, um there was some drama, some gossip that had kind of gotten around the community.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: And uh there always is a little bit of that in any sort of college ministry that's normal.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't feel like it when you're in it, but there's it's normal, uh, unfortunately.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that had come up in most recent times was that the I would say probably the most popular guy there, uh, it had come out that he was dating two women.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it started like all this, because it's not like they published this information, right?
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like it started in the same way that it normally starts where like somebody catches them and sees them.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've watched uh Amazon Prime's company retreat, uh, but it's amazing.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: There's this scene in there where that same sort of thing is happening, and it's like this, it's all staged, but it's a scandalous moment, and it like reminded me so much of that.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody saw it, somebody saw him with the other woman, started asking some questions, and those questions, which were probably genuine, turned into a little bit of gossip and turned into a little bit more gossip, and then all of a sudden we realized that the gossip was actually true.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, when you're in a situation where you feel like people are talking about you, you just stop showing up at things, you just kind of take a backseat to the world for a second, and that's kind of happened with him.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: He hadn't been there in maybe two months or so, and um so we're sitting there one Wednesday night, prepping for Eucharist, and we're just all sitting around, like we're so crammed into this room, we're just kind of talking to each other and sitting on top of each other and all this sort of thing.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, as we're chatting, I don't actually remember that topic coming up in this chatting, but I'm sure there was some of it.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that as we're talking, he walks in the door, and you can imagine the hush that went over the craft, right?
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like everybody just right there's something wrong with him.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's like crying, deeply hurt.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: So the rest of us are like, okay.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then he sits down in the middle.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: And through tears, he just says, they know.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Meaning the two women found out.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to tell you, and in some circles I have told this story in this way because it did end this way.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to tell you though that uh at that very moment the community just wrapped their arms around him and just gave him a big hug.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-uh, no way, bro.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like the amount of awkwardness that was in that room was worse than any group chat you've ever been in.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, like that one person said that thing, you're like, ooh, okay, right, we're gonna make a new group chat.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh like that, that, that, that didn't happen.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: We all just sat there.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: You could kind of hear the words they know ringing through the room.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then probably the least likely person in the room.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know how everybody has their ops, right?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is this is probably the least likely person who would have reached out and done something like this.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody, if you're like, if you were writing this, you're like, I would definitely not have that, but that doesn't fit their character profile, right?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: That person got up, put his arms on his shoulders, his hands on his shoulders, and just said, We're here.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: By the end of the night, we were all kind of in this grieving community together, recognizing the hurt that he had caused, and also finding this just incredible forgiveness that came, I don't know where.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: Could it be possibly the Holy Spirit that brought the forgiveness in that space that should not have been?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I remember as deafening as the words they know were, the words we're here were bigger.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now there were some hard conversations that had to follow after that night.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Things about the people he actually had hurt.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Hard conversations.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Conversations I do not want to go back to even more than I do not want to go back to COVID, right?
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like hard conversations about who he had hurt.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: But in that moment, I cannot describe the feeling over the anxiety of the moment any more than peace.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't wrapped up in a bow.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: Wasn't perfect.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: There were some apologies he needed to make to very specific people.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: There were some apologies he needed to make to the community that was trying to deal with this secret of his.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: So that there starts to be a relationship there again, a connection there again, as if this is the resurrection moving through their community.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't make a lot of sense.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: But it's peace.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's peace.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: The last part of the story.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's this reminder that, like, we're all here for a purpose, to go share the good news of his resurrection with the world and to stop letting the fear overwhelm us, to be granted the peace that is only from God.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Even though it doesn't feel wrapped up and tidy in a bow, even though it doesn't feel like it's perfect, even though there's a little bit of there.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of how we normally begin it, by thinking through all the lines we're going to say in what sequential order.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder what would happen if we were to reach out to those that are in our community and say, peace be with you.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder what kind of world the church would build outside of it if the church was more known for saying, peace be with you to the general world rather than all the things we hate about it.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: I wonder what peace would have a role there.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Enough for us to say, I've been scarred and hurt.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: When I was 17, I left the church that I was baptized in.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: My sister was baptized in.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: My parents were married in.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: They had become members there when they first moved to Deland, Florida in 1980.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember sitting in the town hall where we all left the church because my grandfather was very upset.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: I remember he was like, isn't this a church?
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then we all kind of got up and left.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it was very dramatic.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: And we had a family meeting and we decided we're no longer going back to that church.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that was really hard for me because I wanted to work in the church.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: This seemed like a step back in my career, you know.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: But basically, the pastor and some other people had very blatantly told less than full truths about a lot of things, and it was all kind of coming to light as things always do.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw that I saw that as a back step.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: But I've met so many people who have been so hurt by the church in so many different ways that I now look at that as a way in which I'm actually being sent, where God's given me some sort of peace that I couldn't get myself, and I'm actually taking that step forward.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, how many times have I been hearing somebody's story about how they've been hurt by this, or this person said this to them, or this person said this to them?
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Oh, can I show you my scars?
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: Can I tell you about what happened?
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: Being sent out.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: It may be helpful in your relationships, friendships, the brokenness that you might be experiencing, the heaviness, the burden, all that stuff.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: It might be helpful in that if you could share that with somebody else.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: To say that, hey, I know this sounds bad.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: I know it feels terrible.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it is.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna hear every word that you say.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: But can I also tell you the good news?
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: That God grants peace.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: That God speaks.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: Can I tell you about a time this happened to me?
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: Not in a way of taking over the conversation, by the way, like you all know those people, like let them talk.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: But uh at that moment when there's this kind of receiving, can I tell you about this time it happened to me?
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: Peace be with you.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: That night before he was betrayed, the night he was taken, the night he was afraid, the disciples were afraid, in which he gave them the sustenance and the peace that only Jesus could give.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's crazy.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: They were sitting there eating the Passover meal, they were drinking uh wine and eating bread, and he gave thanks to God for the loaf that he held, and then he broke it in two.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I just can't imagine if he looked at the people that were gonna deny him, the people who are gonna hurt him, the people who he felt like they're gonna destroy everything.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's as if he handed them his body and he said, This is my peace.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: This is my body broken for you.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: He did the same with the cup.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: He said, This is my blood of the new covenant that's poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of your sins.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: Did you hear that part?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: Forgiveness of your sins.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: He says, As often as you drink of this, he said, Remember me in everything that you do, remember me.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's the sustenance of peace that he provides.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray over this meal together.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, God, we ask that you pour out your Holy Spirit on these gifts of bread and the cup.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ that we might be for the world the body of Christ redeemed by your blood.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Make us one with Christ in one and unity to all the world until you come in final victory, and we feast at your heavenly banquet, together as a community, as your people.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh God, we give you all honor, praise, and glory now and forever.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.