Pastor’s Corner
Christmas is only six weeks past and Easter is only eight weeks away. It’s that time of year when we in the church realize we have a different sense of time. Our time sequences fall outside the evenly-paced quarterly solstices and equinoxes of the calendar year. They are as reliable as the solar clock ticking inexorably along!
The church year’s changing start date for Ash Wednesday and Lent give witness to the surprising promise of Easter which we await on an annual basis and in the fullness of time. I was recently asked in our church parking lot by someone I’d never met if everyone went to heaven. Since he had attended a memorial service, I guessed that he was struck by John 14.6, “No one comes to the Father but my me.” I responded to him by saying we live by the promise of that verse without considering it a threat. He remarked that he had asked a college student in our area the same question and was given the answer that “Everyone goes to heaven.” That’s a response that counts on the regularity of the seasons instead of the dislocating surprise of the resurrection. Lent’s coming. Then suddenly it’s Easter. Be prepared to be dislocated in time, thoughts and faith!
I have been thinking about the Body of Christ image which was read in church on January 24th. I made a few comments about it at our Annual Meeting. I want to emphasize again that all of us are but one kind of body part. As St. Paul wrote, common sense teaches us that some body parts are weaker, less respectable or inferior. Through the Holy Spirit, faith reveals to us that these same parts are “indispensable, have greater respect and receive the greater honor.” How’s that for turning the world’s wisdom upside down?
As we continue our life together as a congregation, let us rejoice that this portion of the whole “Body of Christ” displays not only the practical gifts of the Body — be they strong, average or weak — but the spirit of love which “bears, believes, hope and endures all things.”
The two-year rotation of my daily devotional recently presented with the gift of Luther’s sacristy prayer. I pass it on to you as I remember my pastoral call and my role as one part of the Body of Christ at First Lutheran.
“Lord, God, Thou hast placed me in Thy Church as a pastor: Thou seest how unfit I am to fulfill this great and responsible Office, and had it not been for Thy wisdom and guidance I would long since have brought everything to destruction. Therefore do I cry unto Thee. Most willingly do I desire to give and conform my mouth and heart to Thy service. I desire to teach the people, and long continually to be taught Thy Word. Deign to use me as Thy workman, dear Lord. Only do not Thou forsake me; for if Thou forsake me, I, alone, shall bring all to naught. Amen.”
Grace and peace,
Philip Nesvig, pastor