We build a house, ancient and new;
We are a people seeking light and truth.
Shaped by your word… fashioned in grace–
We bear your image to this time and place.

These lyrics from a song Carla introduced last Fall have always touched me.  In these days when cynicism, fatigue, distrust and division seem to reign, I ask myself: What does it mean to bear God’s image to this time and place? What does it mean to represent Christ’s reconciling work?

As I write this we are surrounded by reminders of the world’s great need for Good News. Our great need.  The ravages of selfishness, alienation, lack of empathy, and cold-heartedness.  The human failure of short-sighted or cruel individuals, the sin of institutions. Riots erupting in lament and despair.  Our vulnerability to the viruses of Covid, of enmity, of vengeance.

(I wrote those first paragraphs before the latest mass shooting, in Indianapolis.)

It is hard to see an end in sight. Hard to imagine what “breaks in” with a redeeming power.  

It is hard, isn’t it, even just two weeks after Easter and its soaring assurances of Love’s “victory”? 

Yet, we will sing these words Sunday.

Good Christians all, rejoice and sing!
Now is the triumph of our King!
To all the world glad news we bring:
“Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!”

I pray that we will focus in these Eastertide weeks on what it means to be an Easter people.   I have come to believe that this does not mean having easy answers or lording it over others with moral injunctions or resurrection claims. It DOES mean we are shaped by Word-Made-Flesh, fashioned in grace…It DOES mean we bring this Light and lens to all we face in the world.

May the challenges of our current day strengthen the resolve of our hearts to experience and understand Christ’s cross and resurrection for ourselves.  Whatever it might mean for the world, it cannot mean anything if it does not start with us,,,

In Christ’s Peace,
Pastor Jacki