36 :: Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church

This morning I streamed a Mass at Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church in Dunkirk, New York. Dunkirk is outside of Buffalo. My occasion to attend the service was driven by two variables. First, my youngest son Jonah has Covid-19 (he is fine) and until I get my test results, I thought it irresponsible to attend church in person. Secondly, my close friend Dave has moved from Charlotte back to his native home around Buffalo in the last year. He recently heard a homily during Mass that he felt would have been of interest to me. He sent a link to the church that I have held onto until this morning.

I attended the 8:30 Mass this morning, streaming via the WDOE channel on TuneIn, a radio app. Beth also listened in, so we "went to church together" again, albeit virtually.

Dunkirk is far away. This was my first time doing one of my church visits online. It was my sixth Catholic Mass. With all variables taken into account, it made for a unique experience. The Mass was forty-five minutes in length, followed by fifteen minutes of Christmas caroling inside the church. All told, it was a very unusual way to end this most unusual year.

The homily (sermon/message) focused on one of the great stories of the Bible, which I believe most people might not readily know. It takes place in the second chapter of Luke and recounts when Joseph and Mary brought the infant Yeshua to The Temple in Jerusalem to be blessed. While in The Temple, they encountered Simeon, a holy man who spent all of his time in The Temple. Of significance is that Simeon had been told earlier in his life that he would not die before he saw the arrival of the Savior. 

The moment that Joseph and Mary walked into The Temple, Simeon focused on the baby Yeshua. He held him up and sang what is known as The Song of Simeon (Luke 2:29-32):

“Sovereign Lord, as You have promised,
you may now dismiss Your servant in peace.
30 For my eyes have seen Your salvation,
31 which You have prepared in the sight of all nations:
32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and the glory of Your people Israel.”

Essentially, Simeon was saying, "I've seen God's arrival on Earth, as promised. Now, I can die."

This Song of Simeon is also known as the Nunc Dimittis. Bach and other composers have written symphonic pieces of music related to these verses of the Gospel of Luke. Put simply, this may be one of the most relevant parts of the New Testament that most people have not heard of.

The Song of Simeon made an impact on me years ago. I remember considering how Simeon's life was spent in quiet anticipation of the arrival of the Hope of Israel and subsequently, humanity's hope. Despite the fact that Simeon was located in the most holy place in all of Judaism, he was acutely aware that something was missing and something was pending. 

Think of it - Simeon was in The Temple in Jerusalem. The holiest place on Earth in Hebraic cosmology. The Temple was built around the Creation Stone, the place where the world as we know it came into existence. This was precisely the place where the Holy of Holies was located, which was where The Ark of the Covenant was stored. Finally, it was the place where the Jews had settled after their forty years in the desert while fleeing captivity in Egypt. 

The Temple in Jerusalem

A very holy place in every way! 

Despite being in this place of spiritual splendor and profound theological significance, Simeon had decided to wait for what wasn't yet to be found in the world. He was waiting for the arrival of a Redeemer of his people and of the world. He was waiting for this Savior despite the presence of crowds that were coming and going in The Temple around the clock. Simeon refused to focus solely on the Covenant that existed in Israel at that time. He waited patiently for the time that he could play a role in honoring the arrival of what the Hebrews called Ha'Mashiach... The Messiah.

When the little baby came into The Temple, Simeon knew right away. He gravitated toward Yeshua in a moment. He held the newborn Yeshua up in his hands. And then Simeon made a spiritual declaration in the form of the Song. 

I've often wondered if Simeon was surprised to see that salvation was coming into The Temple in the form of a little baby. Perhaps he was expecting a Warrior King followed by an army of soldiers. Perhaps he was expecting a white haired Priest from the Levite clan, marching into The Temple with a long path of scribes and philosophers in tow. 

Who knows what Simeon thought was coming to redeem the Universe?

What we do know is that Simeon saw a little baby who was carried by a young and humble couple of no significant social status - yet he recognized right away that his Redeemer lived! How did Simeon know? What tipped him off that this baby was the fulfillment of his life's waiting? How did he feel as the couple left him, knowing that he could now die in peace? 

On all of these questions, we can only guess.

Simeon is never mentioned again in The Bible.

The Priest continued with his homily. In the same chapter, we meet Anna. She was a prophetess, an elderly window and also a devout Jew who spent her days in The Temple. Anna and Simeon very likely knew each other, even though we have no independent validation of that. And she also took note of the baby Yeshua. Luke 2:36-38 says:

There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.

As I read this, I considered that Anna occupies a very unique place in Christian history, as she would qualify as the second evangelist of the Good News, after John the Baptist. Her first impulse was to talk to those around her about what she had seen and experienced. That Redemption was here!

Of note is that I was hearing about Anna the prophetess in a Catholic Mass, which explicitly forbids women from participating in their clergy. It could be argued that if God is fine with women being prophetesses, how could an Earthly institution take a stance that might be seen as diametrically opposed?

Of note, both Simeon and Anna are thought of in Orthodox theology as the last prophets of the Old Testament.

I loved that the homily explored this rich chapter of the Bible that I have not pondered in years.

Then, the reading from the Bible was from a book that is not in the canon that I am accustomed to. The reading was from Ben Sira 29:11. This book in the Catholic Bible is also called Book of Sirach, part of the Apocrypha. 

The verse goes as follows:

Dispose of your treasure according to the commandments of the Most High,
and that will profit you more than the gold.

An invitation to using material assets for the Kingdom of the Most High, instead of for our own aggrandizement. Yes!

Wisdom from a book of the Bible that I have never read. For that matter, a book that isn't even in my Bible. What else is contained in The Apocrypha that is worth pondering is only a guess. I read parts of it more than twenty years ago and never returned for more. 

In 2021, Beth and I are going to read the entire Bible together, minus The Apocrypha. If I know the two of us, we will eventually end up reading The Apocrypha. It just won't be next year.

As the Mass completed, I texted Dave and told him that we had tuned into the Mass at his church up in Dunkirk. He said he had been there for the same Mass with his Mother. Small connections across long distances via the internet while experiencing a form of worship that goes back more than two millennia. These really are remarkable times.

Thanks to Holy Trinity for virtually hosting us, it was interesting and unique to attend church this way.

35 :: Calvary Chapel of Delaware County

Today I worshiped at Calvary Chapel of Delaware County. If you're familiar with the broader set of large, evangelical congregations in the US, you may know Calvary Chapel out in California. This church is one of many East Coast churches affiliated with Calvary Chapel. 

This was my third time worshiping outside of North Carolina and second time above the Mason Dixon line while on this spiritual pivot. It was a fantastic experience. Part of what made it special was the chance to worship with family. While my fiancée Beth and I have been going to church together, we may be called "impending family" at this time. The people with whom I worshiped are blood family and one is from my body. My Aunt Sara and Uncle Bill are longtime believers in Yeshua and they were accompanied by their son Peter and his wife Karla (who is expecting a child in a few months!). My eldest son Liam also attended, he lives in the Philly area now.

There were two services, one at 9 and one at 11. We went to the 9 am service.

I drove there with Liam and we arrived to a snowy and grey morning.

As you can see, this is a modern church, and it is in a place that is markedly colder than Charlotte. The alignment with the contemporary church ethos is not only reflected in the design of the building, but also in the format of the worship. 

You'll notice there is a restaurant/coffee house, a bookstore, as well as a great-looking layout of the church's interior:

Really a beautiful church!

The worship was equally upbeat and modern. The band was solid and emotional. In all the right ways, this church reflected where church is going in general - toward a modern look, a modern format and contemporary music. And it seems to be working for Calvary Chapel of Delaware County. The attendance at the early service was reasonably solid. As per the usual with earlier services, the age bracket of the attendees was skewed a bit toward a bit of an older crowd. After the music, the screens lit up and a representative from a local ministry came on the screen and spoke about how they are able to help meet the needs of Philadelphia's poor through significant help from Calvary Chapel.

This was meaningful, as the wealth disparities in the Philadelphia area are rather profound and it looks like the gap is widening. As I type these words, it occurs to me that this can be said of every part of the US right now. 

After the video bulletins, Senior Pastor Bob Guaglione came on stage and gave one of the more solid sermons I have heard on this journey. He dug deep into Exodus and explored the story, themes and symbolism of the Hebrews being led out of bondage by Moses.

Beth watched this service from Charlotte, and we talked about it later. It made an impact.

Here's a picture of Bob covering some essentials right before giving the sermon:

Of note is that Beth and I have both been coming across explorations of Exodus a great deal lately, including at Freedom House. I love when this happens, it causes me to pay closer attention than usual, as I take it as an indication that something is being driven deep for me.

This sermon was absolutely part of that process, where a theme was being driven deep.

One of the first points that Bob made that hit home was that each of the ten plagues that were visited on the Egyptians were exact points of divine invasiveness. YHVH was intent on dismantling the economic vitality of the Egyptians and surgically visited difficulties on those parts of their societal strength and power. 

Agriculture? Swarms of locusts.

Irrigation? A Nile of blood.

Animal husbandry? Boils on cattle.

And so on. 

This sounds familiar to me. Deeply familiar and currently relevant.

In addition, Bob made the point that Moses offered Pharaoh the chance to have the plagues cease, by letting the Hebrews go. Specifically, Moses asked Pharaoh when he would want to frog plague to cease - to which Pharaoh replied... "Tomorrow morning."

Bob pointed out that even in the midst of the systematic destruction of his society, Pharaoh was still attached to the pain of the known. The Devil that he could see, if you will. 

As Bob himself might be fond of saying - Brutal!

The next morning, Pharaoh changed his mind (the theology around the role of YHVH "hardening Pharaoh's heart" is myriad and interesting) and didn't permit the Hebrews their departure. As a result, the chaos continued, culminating in the Angel of Death slaughtering the legacy of the Egyptians, while passing over the homes of the Hebrews because their door lintels had the sign of the blood of an unblemished Lamb on it.

Death passing us by because the Blood of the Lamb saves us would also sound familiar to the reader. Yes, the Passover story itself declares and prefigures the story of the Gospel. When I pieced these thematic similarities together decades ago, my mind was blown. That is candidly still my reaction now, seeing the perfectly coherent whole of the Biblical narrative and how it all fits together.

Amazing.

Back to Pharaoh's words - "Tomorrow morning."

This can give us reason for pause. What is it about the human condition that prefers to hold tight to misery and pain, even destruction? What causes us to prefer to dwell with a known pain instead of stepping out and risking greater pain.... but also freedom? We all know people who seem to be defined by past trauma such that their present is shackled by it? 

Indeed, why do we consent to living in a pain prison?

The answer isn't easy and each is answer is very personal. In short this is complicated stuff. 

If I have any insight to give on it, it is this... People can become comfortable living with a known pain instead of risking a new pain. A new pain could also be called an additional pain. Perhaps it would be worse than the original suffering. And because of these unknowns, many people cling onto the pain that they know best. They accept slowly sipping poison from a bottle that they are deeply familiar with. 

But it is poison nonetheless.

What Bob touched on during his sermon was the idea that people that become sick and tired of being sick and tired can get on the road of wholeness and relief through hard emotional work... as well as the relentless pursuit of a loving God.

To these points, I can only say Amen and Amen.

One more note, Bob worked in a scene from The Brady Bunch into his sermon. This was a first for me and made me laugh.

Toward the end of the service, the band knocked out O Holy Night, which was fantastic.

After service, we all had lunch at The Table, the embedded restaurant near the entrance to the church. It was delicious and I met Pastor John Clifford, who joined us at the table for some conversation. He is working on behalf of Calvary Chapel to build community in the Chester, Pennsylvania, which is one of the poorest zip codes in the US. John explained that Calvary is building five homes in and around Chester to help meet the needs of people in that community, including spiritual needs.

Profoundly important stuff and clearly evidence that this congregation is doing the work and walking the walk.

That my Aunt and Uncle have found this place makes me very happy. This is a place where they can worship, enjoy community, get solid teaching and live out their faith into the uncertainty that lays ahead for all of us.

But let's be honest - how the story ends is already known. Right?

Sincere thanks for this awesome church and very positive experience with my family around Christmas. It felt amazing to have this as my thirty-fifth church!

34 :: An Orthodox Church Plant

I had a very interesting experience today. I attended an Orthodox service on a Saturday, in a Catholic Church... and virtually all of the people in the congregation were young evangelical families that were in the process of converting to Eastern Orthodoxy. This particular Orthodox Church is aligned with the Antiochian branch of Orthodoxy. Antioch is in modern day Turkey.

Yes, indeed - this was a very interesting thing to see. Extremely engaging and fascinating to me.

This church does not yet have a name, thus the cryptic title above.

My friend Scott, himself a former Presbyterian who converted to Eastern Orthodoxy twenty-five years ago, learned of an Orthodox congregation that was starting up in Concord, North Carolina. The congregation is almost entirely made up of young families that are converting to Orthodoxy. These are former Protestants and evangelicals that are making a change that reverts their religious context back to the first century church.

I arrived at Guadalupe Hall in Concord, a small Catholic Church that serves the burgeoning Hispanic community in Charlotte. They let the Orthodox use their building on Saturday. I joined a class where a Priest was teaching the young congregants about Orthodox theology. 

Here are some pictures of that:

The Priest did an excellent job summarizing the highest level of detail on Orthodox theology. The thing that jumped out of this lesson was that all of reality is about becoming God-like. There is either God's way or Satan's way of doing it.

In God's way, you start to adopt the character of Christ, who lives in you through the Holy Spirit... partaking in the fruit of The Tree of Life. In Satan's way, you are the god of your own life, asserting autonomy and ownership over your destiny... to eat forever of the fruit from The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

The Priest also got into the "essences" and "energies" that are a big part of Orthodox theology. During that, he said that Orthodox do not believe that a soul always exists. The teaching was that at the beginning of an existence, a soul is created. And, yes, after that... it is eternal.

I pointed out that in Psalm 139 that there is a reference to God knows us before we were "...knit together in our mother's womb." We had a nice exchange (perhaps theologically inconclusive) on the idea of when a soul starts.

After the class, we joined a larger group in the hall where the service was to take place. It was at that time that I started talking to people. One young father was a data engineer at Bank of America. He was raised Southern Baptist and went to Liberty University in Virginia. He was just joining Orthodoxy in recent months. Another of the young fathers was Mark, from Southern California. He had a friends who converted to Orthodoxy years ago our in California. He was deeply concerned for his friend and started talking to him about the decision he had made. It was during those conversations that this was the true church. In his words, "This is the church Christ founded. When I was an evangelical, I had most of it. But this is the full truth."

Simply fascinating.

Mark was also one of the chanters, which is a role similar to a cantor in a synagogue. These are thing people who sing during the Orthodox liturgy. It is of note that the Orthodox liturgy is based on the worship of a synagogue in most ways. More on the chanters below.

Here's a picture of Scott talking to Mark:

I explored the front of the church while people were milling around and I took some pictures. 

Then the congregation started to line up to venerate the icons and get the liturgy underway. Children lined up and marched forward. People made the sign of the cross on their bodies and bowed down. It was fascinating to watch. Here are pictures of that (notice Scott bowing and doing the sign of the cross in the video):

The chanters were a real highlight. These young fathers were refining their skills in this ancient form of chanting/singing. This was among my favorite parts of what I saw at this place. The chanting will take some time to refine, I saw it at my prior three Orthodox liturgies and witnessed it in its refined form. This is a work in progress at this budding church.

As the liturgy continued, they got to the point where they were venerating a Saint, in this case Saint Herman. He was in Alaska in the mid-nineteenth century and helped bring The Way to the Aleuts. 

Before long, the liturgy was over.

So many things to think about...

First, do we have an America version of Orthodoxy?

Why, yes.

Alaska used to be part of Russia. When Russia joined the United States, we inherited the Orthodox communities that lived there. This was the root of the Orthodox Church in America. Since the OCA does not have a patriarch, it is called autocephalous, a term describing the independent nature of the OCA. 

Pretty cool to know.

An additional reflection is on the fluidity of our broader communion in Yeshua. At one time, the Eastern Church and the Western Church were one. Through the Donation of Constantine (now widely understood to have been a forgery), the two churches split, leaving the world with Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. Then there was a protest movement against Catholicism in the West, leading to Protestantism. It is now often said that evangelicalism is the protest to Protestantism. 

Schisms, reformation and offshoots... everywhere.

Yet all people in all branches are organized around the same thing - the understanding that The Manger, The Cross and The Empty Grave are the grounding of our cosmic salvation and eternal redemption. 

New Life via the λόγος.

People can certainly shift around within this broader communion. Protestants often become evangelicals, or they leave belief altogether and embrace other things. Catholics can become "lapsed." Evangelicals can become Orthodox or Catholic and vice versa in every direction. Huge numbers of Catholics in Latin America are becoming Pentecostal, as an example of this kind of shifting. We can give so many examples that acknowledge people moving in and out of belief, as well as across internal belief traditions within the Body of Christ.

Do I see a group of young evangelicals moving into Eastern Orthodox with any level of alarm or concern or confusion? Not in the least. On the contrary, I found it fascinating and hopeful.

People are looking for meaning in the world right now. And people are craving authenticity in a world increasingly defined by marketing and inauthentic and invasive relationships that are more and more digital. Because of these trends, that some people are returning to the first century church isn't the least bit surprising.

I'll finish this post by saying that I did not worship at this church. I observed. That made quite a difference, as I gained more insight into this small-but-growing branch of the Body without needing to be attentive to my spiritual experience. 

But these people did worship in this form that is both exotic and engaging to me. I loved seeing it.

I look forward to seeing an expansion of Eastern Orthodoxy in this most Western of countries, the United States of America. It can only bring more richness and depth to the spiritual fabric of our society.

Sincere thanks to this budding congregation, may they grow and flourish.

Amen.

33 :: Freedom Christian Center

I attended Wednesday night worship at Freedom Christian Center on Freedom Drive in Charlotte. In the South, Wednesday night church is historically a pretty standard thing. In recent years, it has become less common to find it. But this Wednesday evening, I found a strong church community and enjoyed their company a great deal.

As I entered, there was a group of people milling around inside this location. I hesitate to call it a church, as it was more of a definitive building. The turn out was light on a Covid-era Wednesday, as one might expect.

Here are some pictures:

As I walked in, Senior Pastor Dean Melton looked right at me with a serious look on his face and said, "Well, who are you and what are you doing here?"

I paused for a moment. We locked eyes. Then we started laughing.

Jovial.

Pastor Melton and I are cut from a similar cloth in that we can engage in a brief conversation and within perhaps four minutes learn a great deal about each other.

What I learned about him - A big highlight of his time in preaching was when he preached in Ghana, in West Africa. He spoke to crowds on sixteen consecutive nights and in sixteen different places across that country. He founded Freedom Christian Center in 1981. The church has not closed during Covid-19. FCC's Sunday night services have now been canceled due to low attendance, and there is only a Sunday morning and Wednesday night. And FCC has multiple locations around the Charlotte area, plus it supports 1,300 students at FCC schools in other countries. Nicaragua is a special focus of FCC. Finally, Pastor Melton is 75 and feels that a time will come soon when he may not have the energy to continue. He's looking to pass on the mantle.

What he learned about me - I am originally from up north, I am visiting one hundred churches and I went to a church in Myers Park for twenty-five years. 

When he heard this last point, his eyes lit up and he said, "Well, this will be a little different for you tonight, I'm going to guess."

We laughed.

For most of the service, Pastor Melton sat in the back, giving affirmations to the things being said from the pulpit.

I sat down and a big band was up front jamming out Christmas tunes. Hands in the air, clapping, a joyous feel pervaded the place.

Loads of people kept making their way to me and greeting me warmly . Everyone was so hospitable and kind. I will give this affirmation to FCC - I have never been greeted with that kind of warmth in any place that I have been thus far. It was really nice!

Emanni, the Youth Pastor, spent a little time talking to me and then gave me a bag that they give all visitors to FCC. I opened it later, when I got home. Jolly Rancher, a mug and a pamphlet about God:

All the while, Christmas music was filling the place. Here's that:

After the music, it was announcements. What was interesting was the degree of intimacy in that part of the service. The man at the front of the church was giving a series of announcements, asking people in the congregation for more details. People were providing clarifications and even a few corrections and updates to the announcements. 

In short, the congregation and the pulpit were having a free-flowing conversation. While I've seen a few things similar to this, this was truly a first.

Then the Bible lesson started. It was on living in the day and not letting your past or future intrude on the present moment. A refrain that people in multiple churches seem to be reiterating these days, to my delight.

As the man led the Bible Study, people in the congregation were responsively saying, "That's right!" "Amen." "C'mon now." and even "Wow!"

Back and forth they went, with verse and response, verse and response, round and round. And the cadence around this exchange really draws everyone in.

Worship as participatory event.

Yes!

Here are some pictures:

At the end of the Bible Study, the entire place broke out in conversation. People were standing up and raising points about things that required their collective prayer. One woman stood up and said that her friend's mother had cancer in her jaw area and that an intercession was needed. She walked up front and a group of people laid hands on her.

Intense and fervent prayer followed.

Here's that:

Eventually, everyone started walking around and talking to each other. Small clusters of people also stood together and prayed. Pastor Melton also walked me around kept introducing me to more people. Everyone was so warm. Simply incredible.

I talked with a bunch of these folks for a while after the study. I noticed that they were all smiling. Just a friendly and engaging set of smiles based on having just participated in worship. Shared with each other, shared with me.

And you know what smiles do... they travel. I smiled.

And then I had a realization.

As is often said in the South, there is a phenomenon known as "having a church family."

These people were family. 

It kept echoing through my head - this is what it feels like to be in a church family.

A group of people living out their faith in a peaceful unity in an increasingly fractured world.

At Pastor Melton's urging, Emanni gave me an FCC tee shirt as an additional gift. Then I made my way out of FCC and headed home. It had been about an hour of engagement around this close-knit form of worship.

As I drove home, I realized that I had encountered a level of Southern hospitality that I had not experienced in twenty-six years in the Southeast. 

And it made me happy.

Family church. 

Sincere thanks to Freedom Christian Center for their warmth during this mid-week worship.

32 :: Grace Lutheran Church

Today I worshiped at Grace Lutheran Church in South Charlotte. With preparations for Christmas underway, it was a great place to get deeper into the Christmas spirit in this most unusual year. This was by far the smallest church I have been to both in terms of building and congregation size. There were seventeen of us in the congregation today. As a consequence, it was a very intimate event. 

Here's the church and its lobby and the church bulletin:

I sat in the small sanctuary and settled in easily. It had a nice feel, and it was clear that the community was tightly knit. There was a music video [below] and multiple songs and responsive readings, as well as some scripture reading. There was also a children's sermon with two little girls (adorable, seen below). I noticed that a traditional Lutheran service, which this definitely was, had feel of a Catholic Mass in many ways.

Then the sermon occurred. It was about Søren Kierkegaard! I was very excited. Kierkegaard,  a Danish existentialist and theologian, is one of my favorites. I read "Fear and Trembling" back when I was steeped in CS Lewis... let's say around 2005. The teleological suspension of the ethical - at church - this morning?! Too good to be true.

Alas, Pastor James Douglas dove into another writing of Kierkegaard - entitled From the Edge of a Grave. In it, Kierkegaard wrote about the anxiety that can be at the root of existence. He wrote about the importance of a Christian's attention being focused on what can be controlled and what cannot.

The sermon was entitled Peace Amid Uncertainty. 

It provided great food for thought. Like any sermon, what one hears and incorporates is very much grounded in our own experiences and understanding of life.

Here's what I got out of this sermon...

There are basically two types of uncertainty in life. The first are those things that you don't control. The second are those uncertainties that arise from choices we make.

In the first category would be things like corporeal health, political vacillations and social unrest. This is a world increasingly defined by uncertainty, even on the global level. We entered this year like every other, filled with the hope for the best of times and the worst of times. Yet we have found ourselves increasingly at the whim of a pandemic that is a threat to our way of living together. It impacts our prospects of being able to travel. It will even have a direct influence on our ability to attend public events. And none of us saw it coming.

Uncertainty.

Life has uncertainties that arise from that which we don't have any direct control over.

In the second category are uncertainties that arise from things we do or that are done to us. Personal volition and the volition of others can provide ample uncertainties in life. We can make choices that impact the direction of our lives. People can do things that impact us directly. In such circumstances, marriages can end. Lives can be upended. People can experience trauma. As I've heard other people's stories during my life, I have come to the conclusion that many lives have been filled with much more tumult than has mine. Am I grateful to find this out? Honestly, I am. But no life is free of uncertainty and the anxiety that can come from it.

As is the case with both sin and grace, it may be accurate to say that uncertainty is the great equalizer. None of us can escape it fully.

In light of these truths, what are we to do? You can anticipate the message before I write it.

We are to lean into the Manger. We are to lean into the Cross. We are to lean into the Empty Grave.

Have faith.

After the sermon, the congregation took communion, in two phases. It was mentioned that communion was limited to Lutherans, specifically members of the Wisconsin Evangelical Synod. I respected their wishes and sat it out, of course.

After communion, two women opened the kitchen for coffee or tea and snacks. The congregation enjoyed some fellowship as they prepared for the Bible Study to follow. There was a 10:30 streaming service scheduled for later in the morning. The uncertainty of 2020, right?

As I departed, I felt fortified during this Advent season to face the uncertainties of life. They are a guarantee. One that I can meet with faith.

I continue to be amazed by the variety of ways that people are seeking His face. What an amazing journey this is proving to be!

Sincere thanks to this small-but-mighty congregation of Grace Lutheran Church.