A Message from the Pastor
Dear People of God,
Most of you know that the Church Year calendar differs from the secular calendar, yet brings Christians together. For example:
- Advent before Christmas
- Christmas
- Epiphany - The great Light of God’s glory in Jesus, the Wise Men, Includes the Transfiguration (Jesus on the Mountain)
- Lent--Ash Wed. starts the 40 days of Lent—the 40 days do not include Sundays - includes Holy Week, the week between Palm Sunday and Easter that includes Maundy Thursday & Good Friday
- Easter & all the Sundays of Easter - includes Ascension of our Lord - 40 days after Easter
- Pentecost - pente in Greek means 50, 50 days after Easter--the long season that includes Holy Trinity Sunday, Reformation, All Saints Sunday and Christ the King Sunday (last day of the Church Year)
This rhythm allows the whole story of Jesus to be told each and every year. This year is called Cycle A when the gospel readings are mostly from Matthew
Most of the traditional churches use this rhythm and read the same lessons each Sunday.So when on Sunday we read the lessons, the same holy words are being “mouthed” by other Christian churches and that ties us together as a large GLOBAL community in Christ.
This rhythm unites us just as baptism unites us with a very large community, an expansive vision, a new way of life in God that is much larger than one person, one congregation, one political ideology, one tradition of faith. The baptismal pool empties us of our insular identities, our little lives, and into a wider world.
As we consider coming into the Season of Lent on ASH WEDNESDAY (February 5 - early this year), the season of the black crosses on our foreheads, let us remember the three disciplines of Lent - Prayer, Fasting, and Works of Love (social service). Be encouraged to cut out this portion of my letter and put it above your kitchen sink and your bedside table and in your car: Pray for the whole world, for lands torn by war, including our own; for whole continents ravaged by epidemic illness; for tribes and nations crushed beneath ancient prejudice and age-old oppression. Fast for the whole world. Live simply so that others may simply live. Bring about works of love. You are really good at this because you are God’s people, church people and you love “giving.”
Remembering your Baptism, I quote Cherwien’s poem: “O Water, O Life, O Fountain and Origin, have mercy on us.”