Pastor’s Page
A second Pandemic Advent is upon us. “How long, O Lord??”
For yet another winter, we find ourselves entering this Advent journey with a bit more baggage than we want to be carrying. Yes, it’s a season of promise and expectation and hope; and it’s also a season of disappointment, sadness and stress. In a “normal” year, Advent is always marked by the tension of both joy and sorrow, but COVID makes everything feel more intense.
Recently I was talking to a friend who has three school-aged children. She was lamenting that she hadn’t done “more” with the past year and a half. In hindsight, she can see all she could have done with the time. Yes, we now know that we could have homeschooled our kids and taken a cross-country trip. We could have spent two months visiting far-away family members. We could have learned new lessons and hobbies and created new routines. Oh, the opportunities we missed!
It's easy to look back and see now how we might have used this time differently, both individually and as a country, community, and even Church. But that’s not really fair to the Us of last year. The Us of last year was in exile – banished from our usual home and routines yet not settled enough to make new ones. How about we all be a little more gracious toward ourselves and one another about how we’ve handled these months? We didn’t know what we didn’t know. We survived. Along the road we cared for one another. We tried and failed. We tried and succeeded. We grieved and grew and changed and learned.
This is what wilderness journeys do. Jesus’ time in the wilderness had him wrestling with demons and claiming his true identity. Our COVID wilderness has helped many of us also clarify our own priorities, truths, and identities. Journeys shape us, and we don’t really get to be in control of how they shape us. What we do get to be in control of is whether or not we want to participate in the change – to see it, appreciate it, and grow from it.
During these weeks we will look with hope to the promise of re-birth. We will wait for Christ to break into our journey and bring salvation and promise to all places of pain and sorrow. There’s a destination (spoiler…it’s a baby in a manger!) – and we want to get there – just like we want to get to the end of this pandemic. Yet Advent calls us to be present to the journey itself. To pay attention to our fellow travelers. To make time to quietly ponder each step as we make it. To listen to how God is calling us to change, to repent, to grow, and sometimes to simply be silent and grounded in God’s presence.
This season you will see a beautiful banner hanging in our sanctuary, made by PRLC member, Larkin Van Horn. It’s adorned with the image of a labyrinth, a symbol of a journey. The thing about a labyrinth is that the destination isn’t the end. When you reach the center, you go back out again. That’s what our life in Christ is all about. We journey together with and toward Christ, and then we journey together back into the world. This Advent, I pray you will be “present to the present.” Take time for silence. Take time for reflection on this, and all, journeys of your life. Be aware of those on the road with you, and most of all, know that God walks with you, too. Christmas is not our destination, friends, despite what the advertisements will tell you! So maybe don’t focus so much on getting there, but on being here.
As resources for your journey, please worship with us. Use the PRLC member-written devotional. Come sing Holden Evening Prayer on Wednesdays evenings. Join in Pastor Hansen’s forum about his own sabbatical journey. Pray, listen, and dwell. I thank God that we travel together. May God bless our journey.
Pastor Anne Lohrmann