A Moment Aside --- 25 November 2021
Since the beginning of the
COVID-19 pandemic, many congregations have had to suspend public worship in
their sanctuary buildings. This was done in order to promote public health and
to head off spreading the infection to people who may be more vulnerable to the
effects of this disease that has taken so many lives in our world… and
continues to take lives to this very day.
The lesson the times have
taught us is this: the church isn’t the place we go to worship; the church is
WHO WE ARE as a people of God.
The Temple in Jerusalem
was believed to be the place where the presence of God was most easily experienced and found. We know that God is present everywhere. Yet there is one place where
the presence of God is most surely found, and that is in the Church of Jesus
Christ. Not in the buildings of wood, stone, plaster, or concrete, but in the
faithful who have the presence of God in them through faith confirmed in
baptism. Who they are before God and what they do in the world can present God’s
presence to all who wish to see it.
Do we do it perfectly?
Surely not! Still, the grace of God may flow through us for the sake of all
creation.
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Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by
mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones,
let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood,
to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:4-5)
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