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4/14/2023 0 Comments

Salvation arrived.

Beloved of God,
Members of this church should plan to attend a congregational meeting this Sunday. We’ll be taking up some important matters including affirming folks to steward our Missions and Outreach team and filling vacancies within the council. I believe we make these decisions more wisely when there are many of us listening for the Holy Spirit together. We’ll meet after the Sunday School hour, which concludes at 11:30 am.

As we approach the summer, we’ve had several students who have either worshipped with us or connected with our community ask for assistance finding housing. If you have space that might be open to house a student this summer please contact the office at 505.672.9764 or email [email protected]. We would like to help coordinate this for members who can host a student in need.

The Scripture reading this week comes from 1 Peter 1:3-9, and it’s a short passage that places us right in the middle of both the challenges and joys of living the promise of the resurrection right now. The Christians who first read this lived in one of the hardest places in the Roman empire to be a Christian. Asia Minor in modern Turkey was the place where early Christianity met both flourishing and persecution in the greatest measure. Living into the living hope and inheritance mentioned here was not a simple matter. Faith for these Christians did mean that they might “have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.”
But the comfort on offer here is that while resurrection in its fullness was still off in the distance, salvation itself had already arrived:
1 Peter 1:8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
There was room for joy even as suffering loomed. They, like us, love a living Jesus even if we do not see him just yet. They are, and we are, already receiving the end result of our faith right now. We are saved and safe inside Christ’s resurrection life no matter what. There are places where our brothers and sisters in the Lord are facing danger precisely because they follow Jesus. We might not expect their lives to be marked by joy, but so often that is exactly the case. We have much to learn from our broader Christian family about how to bear with patience real danger knowing we are already safe and saved in Jesus. Inheritance must wait, and resurrection is on the way, but salvation is right here right now.

Please join me this week in praying for:

Wisdom.
Our Associate Pastor Search Team:
- Tim
- Claudia
- K.T.
- Kristine
- Pete
Parents and kiddos looking to end the academic year well.
Teachers who are laboring on behalf of those same families.
In thanksgiving for safe travels and safe returns through Spring Break in our community.
Folks who are lonely, angry, and afraid.
Those in positions of public trust at the federal, state, and local levels.
Students who are planning to spend the summer in our community; for their physical and spiritual needs.
Those who respond to emergencies on our roads, in our wildlands, in our communities, and even in our homes.
Our Deacons.
Each other (please email [email protected] if you’d like to be added to our prayer list).

You are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world,
Marshall

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4/5/2023 0 Comments

An end to exile

Beloved of God,

   I hope you’ll make plans to join us for our Easter celebrations on Sunday. For early birds, there is an ecumenical sunrise service at Overlook Point. It starts at 6:30 and is a great way to spend time celebrating the resurrection with other Christians in our community.
   In our regular service at 9:00 AM we’ll be observing the Lord’s Supper together. I’m always so grateful to come to the Lord’s table having been freshly reminded of His resurrection. It is especially important that we get to hold this ordinance together as a congregation called into existence only by and for the resurrected Christ.

   Our Scripture reading for Sunday comes from Jeremiah 31:1-6. There’s nothing tricky about the passage on the first read. It is the kind of promise you read in so many of the prophets about the end of exile and the restoration of God’s people to their rightful place. That’s how we read it anyway. The hard thing for the people of Judah who came back to their promised land is that for them, it never really felt like exile ended.
   The temple never quite got finished (there was still ongoing construction even in Jesus’ day). God never rushed upon that sanctuary in power as he had upon Solomon’s temple in 1 Kings 8:10-11. The returned exiles changed the power of one foreign ruler for another in succession from Persians, to Greeks, to Romans. Physical exile was over, but the feeling of exile lingered.
   Part of what we celebrate at Easter is the end of exile. All that might have separated God from his people is dealt with in the cross of Christ. Sin, death, and absence; Jesus confronts all of these things fully and finally. Exile is over, for God With Us has come and offers all people rescue from sin and fellowship with God.

Please join me this week in praying for:

Christians around the world as we celebrate Easter.
Our brothers and sisters in Eastern Orthodox traditions as they celebrate Holy Week this week.
Wisdom.
Those among us suffering sickness and injury.
God’s help that we might offer a faithful witness in this Easter season as the Spirit gives us opportunity.
Those who respond to emergencies in our wildlands, on our roadways, in our communities, and even in our homes.
Those in positions of public trust at the federal, state, and local levels.
In praise for the change of seasons.
Each other (please email [email protected] if you’d like to be added to our prayer list).