Do you ever feel like chaos reigns?

No matter where you turn there are alligators nipping at your heels?

You cannot get away for even a moment of peace and quiet?

 

This weekend is an example of the side-by-side competing elements inherent in our lives today. It is the Second Sunday of Pentecost, better known as Trinity Sunday and it is also Memorial Day weekend. As a follower of Jesus Christ where do you place your focus? On Memorial Day a federal holiday in the United States (not the Memorial Day sales) for honoring and mourning the military personnel who have died in the performance of their military duties while serving in the United States Armed Forces. Or on Trinity Sunday when we proclaim the mystery of our faith in God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, when we focus on a doctrine of the Church and our attempt to comprehend the unfathomable mystery of God’s Holy Trinity.

 

Where do we spend our time? Where are our heart, souls, and minds this weekend?

 

These two seeming events are competing with one another for our attention. Like the world we live in there are many gods or events or people that compete for our attention. Where do we turn when confronted with this competition?

 

Look no further than gathering together in the name of the Lord empowered by the Holy Spirit in worship. Worshipping together through prayer, music, Scripture, preaching, and celebration of the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper provides a respite from the world in which we live.

 

In our gathering we do something that is contrary to the world we live in. In gathering for worship on a weekly basis we put at the center of our lives God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All good things flow from our relationship with God.

 

Our relationship with God is evident in our worship service. In our worship we gather by beginning to separate ourselves from the outside world as we come into the presence of God. As we intentionally seek refuge from the world in the Lord. From our gathering we move into prayer, Scripture, reflection upon God’s Word with music filling our souls to be recreated, resuscitated and renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit. This all culminates when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper. In our celebration we gather around God’s Table to be fed so that, we can go out into the world proclaiming what God has done for us. Sharing the good news of an abundant life in Jesus Christ. Inviting others to join us.

 

This week we gather to celebrate our Lord as revealed to us in Mark 8:22-26: The healing of the blind man. Use the link to the reading from Mark. In your reading contemplate the following:

 

Are you blind to God’s presence?

 

Are you blind to the fullness of the joy in Christ Jesus?

 

Come and be recreated, resuscitated and renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

See you on Sunday.

 

In Christ,

Pastor Tim