Jesus tells the disciples that the times and seasons are fixed by the Father. The word “seasons” there has nothing to do with the four seasons. It’s about the appointed times. There was an appointed time for the Holy Spirit to be poured out on the disciples. It was going to happen on Pentecost, also known as the Feast of Weeks. It happens 50 days (7 weeks) after Passover. Jesus died on Passover, when the lamb was sacrificed and the blood marked who death passed over. The feast of weeks celebrates the beginning of the harvest!

Jesus will return at the appointed time, but that’s not just any time. He will fulfill a fall feast just as specifically, which, in part, means on the day!

Jesus spent forty days with the disciples after He rose from the dead. I find that interesting because it’s a number in the Bible we associate with suffering! Jesus was finished, but He had forty more days to get through before He could return to the Father. I can’t say I know if that’s why it’s forty. Jesus was preaching the coming kingdom and it was going to be (is going to be) birthed with pains.

Jesus was about to leave and the apostles were going to take His place as God’s visible image on earth, representing Him and receiving the persecution of it. They will all be martyred with the exception of John, whom they supposedly attempted to martyr, to boil in hot oil, but he lived! We think that’s how he got deported to Patmos where he writes the book of Revelation.

God has His own plan and the plots of men can’t interfere with that, no matter how bad things are looking. God had the plan to receive Jesus home to heaven and pour out the Holy Spirit.

He’s going to give His disciples power to be His witnesses first where they are, then in the surrounding areas, including the one they don’t like, and then to the ends of the earth.

They aren’t going to become powerful. God is all-powerful. We are weaklings. God in us is the power.