A Year of Resurrected Life. 4.1.2021

This morning I spent some time looking through some old calendar materials to refresh my memory on some issues. This is pretty good practice to engage in from time to time. We need to consider past actions to help calibrate what we are doing right now and to plan and prepare for what we intend to do in the future—both near and long term. One thing I noticed was a calendar entry from April 3 2016: Trial sermon @ Grayville. It seems like just yesterday that Mrs. Beckman and I made that first trip to what would become our new home in south-eastern Illinois. I can truthfully say that though five years have passed we are still as happy as when we first met these wonderful people. I am blessed with a trove of good, godly, capable leaders who love the Lord and who are able to articulate the faith and lead with wisdom. 

Which leads to another memory the one which actually provoked my treck down memory lane. It has been a year since the perils of pandemic became known to us. In March our congregation first took precautions to insure that when we gathered for worship we were able to do so safely with proper precautions and no person-to person handling of communion elements or offering trays. Before we could even perfect that style of worship it became necessary for us to suspend all onsite public gatherings. Through the next weeks and months our nation and the entire world suffered. Large numbers of people became infected and died—numbers which seemed inconceivable at the time but which sadly, have now become statistics. 

Throughout the long year we started meeting again, stopped, began again and then stopped once more. During this long and trying time both Easter and Christmas came and went without the traditional celebrations or larger crowds. There were no extra gatherings, parties, meals. No holiday emphases whatever. Truly it was a long, strange year.

We have been holding public, on-site worship since February. We do not anticipate needing to adjourn again. As more people are vaccinated and the threat continues to subside we will slowly add programming, educational, and social activities. For some, it cannot come fast enough. Others will continue to be wary for some time. Our church, is like countless others who have to consider the circumstances of our own flock, the impact of the pandemic on our community, and the fatigue we all feel from the forced-march of inactivity. Which reminds me once again of the men I mentioned earlier. I cannot think of a group of men I would rather have discussed these difficult times and with who I would have rather made these hard decisions. I have been blessed. I also know that some have not been so fortunate. 

This time of reflection gives us a chance to consider some essential questions.

• Have we done more growing or groaning?
• Have we contemplated the opportunities or complained about imagined oppression?
• Have we learned more than we lost?
• Have we been faithfully focused or fretful and feckless?
• Have thought more about how to serve others or how we have personally suffered?

When we look back on 2020 how will it linger in our memory? Will we think of it as a year filled with regrets and remorse or will it be a year of renewal and resurrection hope? 

That is no empty, rhetorical question. The choice was always yours, and mine. Even in “normal”  years with no pandemic, no unrest, no turmoil you were not in control of the circumstances. And if you thought you were that presumption came from naiveté or ambivalence. Circumstances are always unforeseen and unknowable; till they are upon us. We always choose. We always react. We always respond. 

I hope that you consider this entire period from last Easter until this Easter a grand opportunity to live the Resurrected life of a Kingdom-focused disciple. We have had opportunities to learn and change and evolve and adapt that we may never see for the rest of our lives. We have had an entire year of Resurrected Life to live in a crisis environment of undetermined duration. Never since the opening era of Christian history has so much been so unsettled nor has so much been so secure for the faithful who survive the darkness of the cross to live in the light of the empty tomb.