Missive (17 January 2021)

 It has certainly been a trying couple of weeks, no?  As if the pandemic wasn’t enough to worry people, the political goings on of the day have certainly added another whole dimension to our world of worry.  And yet, I’ve said nothing of it: until now.  Why?

I choose what I am writing about and preaching about based on a hierarchy of importance and need.  Guess what?  Administrations come and go, as do nations and empires, as do times of feast, famine, and disease.  What always remains is the call to holiness each one of us has received, first in our birth, and then especially in our rebirth – Baptism.

So, you tell me: What is the most important thing that has happened over the past two weeks?  My answer: the celebration of Epiphany and then the Baptism of the Lord.

Does this shock you?  Are you concerned that my priorities are messed up?  No doubt there are some who will believe so.  But as we look at the long march of human history we come to realize that the people of God are sanctified in times of peace and plenty, and especially in times of trial and even (especially) persecution.  Saints have arisen in the peaceful hills of Italy and the plains of the United States; they have also arisen in the death camps of Nazi Germany, the slavery of the Islamic Middle East and Africa, Communist Russia, and present-day North Korea and China.

The politics of the moment are of rightful concern to every person, including every Christian; but our salvation is not in who is president – our salvation is in Christ, Who’s birth we spent four weeks preparing for, and Who’s birth and epiphanies we have just spent the past three weeks celebrating.

So, while we keep an eye on the goings on around us: pandemic, social unrest, political gamesmanship, etc., let us stay focused on the reason God has created and redeemed us: that we may become the saints we were created to be, and be then rightly prepared for the eternal communion that is promised to those who will respond in faith, hope, and love to that blessed invitation that has been extended to us.

“Who will separate us from the love of Christ?  Trial, or distress, or persecutions, or hunger, or nakedness, or danger, or the sword?  Yet in all this we are more than conquerors because of Him Who has loved us.”  (Romans 8:35, 37)