Today we have Biblical support to have worship services on the internet, that is, virtual. Acts 1:9 says "[Jesus] was lifted up as they watched, and a cloud overcame him and hid him from his eyes." The only question is, which cloud: Amazon Web Services, or Microsoft Azure?
While the disciples were looking at the sky two angels gently redirected them. They said, "Why are you looking at the sky? This same Jesus who has been taken from you to heaven, will come in the same way, just as they had seen him to heaven." The holy cross was the path that Jesus took to go to heaven, his throne, glory, power and kingdom.
Search for Jesus where there is suffering. Jesus will come to you.
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Once upon a time there was a pastor, a Lutheran Pastor, whose name was Bob Quello. Bob Quello. He was my pastor. He was tall, and from the pacific northwest. Bob came to our church in Sedona, Arizona and was loved and admired. He was tall with a big booming voice. The first time that I remember meeting pastor Quello, we were moving him and his wife from one house to another. We had a Uhaul truck, and some members from the church including myself, a teenager at the time, helped with the move. They were staying in a house that was built on a hillside somewhere near airport mesa. When we entered the home, his wife, Jan, greeted us by waving her arms and shushing us away from her husband, “Bob.” She said, “Bob is video editing like mad.” I looked and saw him staring at a small color TV, with some controls in front of him, a pile of gadgets and wires, and some kind of a joystick. He didn’t even acknowledge that we were there to move all of his stuff! Jan directed us toward the piles of boxes. She explained that there was some special family event coming up and Bob was making a video montage. We carried the boxes to the uhaul truck.
The house they were moving into was further on the west side of town off of Dry Creek road. The neighborhood was called Arroyo Seco. But it turned out this was just another rental house, for Pastor Bob Quello and his wife Jan would be building a custom home near the church. I would end up spending quite a bit of time helping to build that house.
Eventually Pastor Quello stopped “video editing like mad,” and helped us move his earthly possessions and even drove the Uhaul. I sat in the passenger seat while he drove west down 89A. The sun hung low on the horizon and Pastor Quello folded down the visor pushing it forward all the way so that it touched the windshield. I had never seen that before. It was strange. My parents, and everyone I had ever ridden in the car with, folded the visor down just a little so that it pointed more toward their forehead as opposed to the windshield. I believe I must have said something about this, because I remember him saying that it was safer to point it forward in case one was in an accident the visor was out of the way and not protruding toward one’s forehead. It was at that moment that I realized that perhaps this man of God, knew some things that I and my family did not. Perhaps he was somebody worth listening to. At the very least I could pick up tips on how to properly pace a sun visor in a UHaul truck.
We were not able to take all of the Quello’s boxes and furniture in just one trip, there were several. On the way back from the new rental we drove south down Dry Creek Road. In the distance above House Mountain or perhaps even beyond hovered in the air a constellation of thunderhead clouds glowing gold, orange, and red. The pastor pointed at them and remarked how beautiful they were. I agreed. It is widely known and accepted that Arizona has the best sunsets in the universe. It was also fortunate that those thunder clouds were not on top of us in which case we would be being rained on and carrying soggy cardboard boxes or worried about getting struck by lightning.
When Jesus ascended into heave