Pastor's Page
By the time you read this, the schools in Tullahoma will be back in session. The fleeting days of summer will, for all practical purposes, be over for the children, and the prayers of countless parents will have been answered. With both of our sons now in college, this is the first time in 15+ years that Terri and I have no part in the back to school rituals. Even so, with our Christian education program gearing back up at church, the days now at hand are different, despite the fact that it’s only August and heat and humidity will continue their sweltering grip.
Such movement is part and parcel of life as the current of time carries us ceaselessly downstream. We can bemoan it, celebrate it, curse it, but whatever our reaction the end result is the same. Day gives way to day, season to season, year to year. Yet, even as the pages never stop turning, we sometimes wonder if they lead anywhere, a mood reflected in Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time.” His words echo the Teacher’s thoughts from Ecclesiastes: “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.”
To be honest, a clear-eyed look at the world can make us wonder if they were not right, that time is merely the meaningless repetition of the same, with wars and rumors of war, injustice and the suffering of the innocent, the exploitation of the weak and the rapaciousness of the powerful. But our faith gives us pause when we find ourselves in such moments, for it offers the hope and the assurance that we are not caught in a closed loop, and that time is more than the past translated into today ad infinitum.
In fact, you could say this is the Rosetta Stone, as it were, by which we can interpret all of Scripture. God is at work bringing forth something new in the story of a child born to a couple of senior citizens named Abraham and Sarah, freeing a group of slaves from the iron hand of the Pharaoh, bringing the exiles home from Babylonia, and in the greatest act of all, laying aside the glory of heaven and bending low to become as we are so that we may be lifted up and made anew.
Yes, even when we may seem stuck in a rut, God never is. God is alive and active, calling us to the challenges that lie ahead, the opportunities for love and service yet to be revealed, the work of proclaiming the gospel and sharing the new life that is ours in Christ. Because we belong to the Lord, now and forevermore, there can never be “the same old, same old,” no matter how circumstances may conspire to convince us otherwise. Though him, in him, with him, we move forward in time, knowing that our words and deeds of faith are not in vain. Through Christ, with Christ, in Christ, our lives are part of God’s great design, and they matter more than we know. That is God’s promise, good people, and God’s promises will never fail--in this life or in that to come.
Grace and Peace,
Patterson