Slideshow image

When I was starting my journey as a minister, my Bishop shared with me a document that he had obviously spent some time on. It was a diagram tracing backward his lineage as a Bishop in the Church of God. The document listed the bishops who laid hands on him at his consecration, as well as, who had laid hands on them at their consecration, and so on. The Bible Reading for today describes how the Apostolic Succession began.  

Today we remember St. Matthias the Apostle. Matthias was one of the early disciples who accompanied Jesus from the beginning of his ministry to the time of the Ascension. He was not one of the twelve, Jesus’ inner circle, but he was one of those whom Jesus sent out in pairs to prepare the towns he intended to visit. After the Ascension the disciples decided that someone was needed to fill the vacancy left by Judas. The lot fell on Matthias, and he was added to the eleven apostles. He was one of the twelve upon whom the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost.  

We know very little about Matthais. One commentator wrote that he is the patron of all honest foot-slogging gap-fillers, the people who can be asked at the last minute to do the dull tasks, the stand-ins and washers-up of our world, upon whom its very existence depends. Thank God for Matthais and the short-stops of our life.  

Bible Reading: Acts 1:15-26