Note to the Congregation During the Pandemic: Remember to Look for God's Guiding Hand

Leviticus 23: 40-43

“40 On the first day you are to take branches from luxuriant trees—from palms, willows and other leafy trees—and rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. 41 Celebrate this as a festival to the Lord for seven days each year. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come; celebrate it in the seventh month. 42 Live in temporary shelters for seven days: All native-born Israelites are to live in such shelters 43 so your descendants will know that I had the Israelites live in temporary shelters when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”

The Israelites had a festival they called The Festival of Booths.   It was a time in which they remembered when they wandered in the wilderness and had no permanent home.  The 40 years that they wandered in the wilderness was a time of extreme hardship and danger. Yet they wanted to remember this time.

They wanted to remember it so that they could celebrate God’s deliverance of them.  God eventually led them to the promised land. And this is what they celebrated.

Hopefully we will look back on this time and see God’s hand, leading and guiding us through the hardships and the dangers.  And we will celebrate our deliverance.

Note to the Congregation During the Pandemic: Remember to Care for Your Spirit

Matthew 15: 1-9

“1Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands before they eat.” 3 He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’ 5 But you say that whoever tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is given to God,’ then that person need not honor the father. 6 So, for the sake of your tradition, you make void the word of God. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said:

8 ‘This people honors me with their lips,

    but their hearts are far from me;

9 in vain do they worship me,

    teaching human precepts as doctrines.’”

Lately we have all been reminded,several times a day, to wash our hands.  According to health officials, this simple thing is very important in keeping us healthy.  But we must also remember to keep our soul healthy.  

Jesus’ disciples were guilty of not ritually cleansing their hands before they ate.  On the other hand, the Pharisees were guilty of having dirty hearts. Jesus accused them of putting the rituals of religion over the things of the spirit (such as mercy, kindness and grace).

Let us all do those things that are necessary to stay healthy, like washing our hands.  But let’s also do those things that keep us strong spiritually

Note to the Congregation During the Pandemic: Remember to Fellowship

Hebrews 10:24-25 

“24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

The writer of Hebrews is encouraging Christian congregations to fellowship with one another. An integral part of this fellowship was, and still is, meeting together.  As Christians we meet together at worship, in Sunday School, in bible study, on work teams, in committee meetings, or maybe we just have a fellowship meal together. Fellowship is an important Christian discipline.  We can learn a lot about God from others. The Holy Spirit works in our fellowship, leading others into our paths, and leading us into the path of others for the work and the will of God.

In times like these we have to fellowship in different ways, but we should never forget to practice fellowship.  The writer of Hebrews, if he were addressing this subject today might say, “ Let us consider how we may show love to one another and perform good deeds for one another from a distance.  Let’s postpone our meetings for now, but let’s not get out of the habit of fellowship. Continue to encourage one another and support one another through this time of trial. The day that we will meet in worship again is approaching.”

Note to the Congregation During the Pandemic: Don't Forget to Pray

Acts 1: 12-14

"12 Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk from the city. 13 When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. 14 They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers."

After Jesus’ ascension, the disciples were told to return to Jerusalem and wait.  Jesus had told them that they would be baptized by the Holy Spirit but I am sure they did not know what they were waiting for.  While they were waiting they all prayed together, men and women. And they prayed constantly.

How are we spending our time during these days of waiting?  Are we praying? Here is a small. list of things we could pray for:

 Pray for the members of our congregation.  Use a directory and pray for one page of members per day.  Pray for their health and safety during this time. Lift them up to God but name. 

Pray for the health care workers who are treating the sick.  Ask God to guide them and let them feel His spirit.

Pray for all those people who are sick with the corona virus that they be made well.

Pray for the families of those whose loved ones have died.

Pray for our nation’s leaders as they struggle to make decisions that will protect us.

Pray for the people of other nations as they struggle as we do.

Let us spend our time of waiting in prayer for one another, for others, for this nation and for the world.

Note to the Congregation During the Pandemic: Remember to Stay Connected

1 Corinthians 12: 12-14

12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by[c] one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

In the scripture above, the Apostle Paul is reminding us that we Christians belong to the same body.  We may have different gifts; we may look different; we may approach a problem from a different angle; but we are all part of the body of Christ.

It is important that we stay connected with other members during this time of social isolation.  Please call each other. Let others hear your voice. Encourage and support one another. For those that you cannot speak to directly, send them a note by email or by mail.   Let them know that they are in your thoughts. If you are on Facebook, visit the pages of members and let them know that you are praying for them.  

We are made up of many different people, but we are all of one body.  The body of Christ.

May the love of Christ be ever with you,

That Christmasy Feeling

My wife, Melanie, and I recently put up our first Christmas tree in our new home.  We always have a real tree that we buy from a tree lot; a tree that has been recently cut in the mountains and transported to Charlotte.  This year we bought a tree that is nine feet tall, the tallest tree we have ever bought.  It would not fit into my CRV so I asked the people at the tree lot to tie it on top of my car.

On the way home from the lot I thought it would be smart to stop and check the tree to make sure it was not loose.  I pulled into a parking lot, opened my car door, got out of the car and shut my door.  As soon as the door shut the rope used to tie the tree snapped.   When I tied the two severed ends together it was too short to fasten to the car.  So I rolled the window of the car down, put the rope into the window, got into the car, rolled the window up, wrapped the rope around my hand and held on while I drove the remaining seven miles home.

We made it home with the tree, although, all the way home,I had visions of the tree flying off the car and onto someone’s hood or through their windshield or hitting someone standing in their yard. Needless to say, the tree had not yet given us that Christmasy feeling.

In the driveway I unwrapped that thin, rotten, sorry (and some other names) rope from the tree and began to slide it off the car towards me.  At this point, I did not know how much that tree weighed.   I realized how much it weighed as it began to roll off the car into my arms.  The sound of it hitting my side mirror and knocking it to the ground filled my ears.  

And there I stood.  Tree on the ground.  Mirror wires dangling from the car.  No visions of sugar plumbs.  No sounds of angels singing.   No Christmasy feeling.  

I put the tree stand on the tree and took it inside.  I stood it up.  It was crooked.  I tightened one side and loosened another side of the stand.  Still crooked.  I loosened it more; tightened it more; loosened it; tightened it.  Finally I loosened one side so that it couldn’t be loosened any more, stood up and pushed the tree in the direction it needed to go.  Tightened it.  Looked at it.  Almost straight.  Good enough.  Walking away, looking at it, I quickly calculated the cost of the tree with the side mirror of the car added into the calculation.  Plus labor.  I did not feel Christmasy.

We added the lights.   One strand wanted to blink, not all the time, just once in a while.  We yanked it off the tree.  We discovered we did not have enough lights for a 9 foot tree.  Melanie ran out to CVS for more lights.  I took a break and listened to Christmas music while she was gone.  She returned.  Traffic was horrible.  Crowds of people were everywhere.  She bought 600 more lights.  We put them on.

And then, standing there in the dark, the tree glowed.  The Trans-Siberian Orchestra began to play the Christmas Canon, and a miracle began to take place in each of us.  “On this night, on this night, on this very Christmas night...” sang the children, as we began to hang the Christmas ornaments; ornaments our children had made; ornaments we had purchased on our travels; ornaments given to us by special friends or family members; ornaments of sleds and mangers and angels.  After we finished we stood staring.  It was beautiful.  This tree.  This first tree in our new home took our breath away.

And the children sang, “This night we pray our lives will show, this dream he had each child still knows, on this night, on this night, on this very Christmas night.

And we felt more than Christmasy.  We felt the miracle of Christmas.

My Ebenezer

Thirty-two years ago in February 1987, my wife, Melanie, and I moved into a new home.  Well, the house was actually 12 years old, but was new to us.  It offered us more living space, a big yard, a large garage, a deck, and a swimming pool.  Our daughter was four years old and Melanie was five months pregnant with our son, so the move was timely.

We lived in that house until January 31 of 2019.  Our children became adults there.  We raised dogs, guinea pigs, hamsters, turtles, gold fish and probably an assortment of other critters that I cannot remember or don’t want to think about.  I taught my children how to swim there.  In the back yard, I hung a tire swing in the oak tree; I planted a vegetable garden almost every spring; we played kickball, and croquet, and bad mitten.  The back yard was where we had cook outs on the grill and sat on our deck and later on our patio and had dinner.

Inside, our gathering place was the den where we watched our favorite shows on TV or used the computer.  Our son liked to use the stairs to send his hot wheel cars whizzing down a track from the top to the bottom.  And at night I would either carry the kids in my arms upstairs to their beds or shew them up as I ran behind them.

A lot of love happened there.

Seeing the house empty, and walking out and locking the door, never to return, was hard.

As I was leaving, I saw the large stone that had sat in our front flower bed for all the years we lived there.  On impulse, I decided to take it with me.  It weighs about 100 pounds so it was not easy to lift into the trunk, but I was determined that it was going with us.  I unloaded it into the flower bed of our new house, in our new 55+ neighborhood.  It has been sitting there since February 1, 2019.  Seeing it each morning fills me with joy.  Seeing it at night under the porch lights gives me comfort.

Today I read that the word Ebenezer means “stone of help”.  It struck me that the rock that I had carried from our old house to our new house is just that.  Somehow that stone, sitting inanimately, and motionless, speaks to me and moves me from present day to yesterday and back.

So, if you are ever in our neighborhood, stop by.  And on the way in, say hello to Ebenezer.  He sits in the front flower bed.