Dear Church
Family
Here we are on April 17, 2020, a week after
the great sacrifice of Jesus Christ, who provided a way for all of us to know
we can be forgiven, and we need to learn what sacrifice can mean to bring
wholeness to our country now. And in Easter season, know sacrifice leads to new
life.
Today’s Washington Post article by Petula Dvorak
on Sacrificing as an American issue is very poignant for right now. She
complains that some people are resisting the need to sacrifice some of our
privileges, for the sake of the whole community. Wearing face masks and gloves
when we are out in public to keep from catching or sharing the coronavirus, is
very important. We are expected to comply. Many protestors around the country
are ignoring the need to be compassionate and sacrificial for the health and
welfare of others, in the name of personal rights.
Sacrificing is not pleasant or easy. When we
have grown up thinking we can have anything we want, no matter what it does to
others, we lose our ability to think outside of ourselves. Yes we have rights,
but we also have responsibilities to love God who asks us to love our neighbors
as Jesus loves them. That will mean some sense of sacrifice is needed. I hope
our Christian faith can help us learn of Christ, who taught us the importance
of sacrifice. Even when difficult, he taught us to pray, “Not my will be Thine
be done.” It’s even in the Lord’s Prayer that most of us use all the time, “Thy
Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth, as it is in Heaven.” We need to see
that there are times when that means we give up our will about not wearing a face
mask, for the health of another. We may not get the virus, but we can pass it
along to others, unknowingly. Let’s be
careful out there.
Living sacrifice and transformed
lives
12 So, brothers and sisters, because of God’s
mercies, I encourage you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice that is
holy and pleasing to God. This is your appropriate priestly service.(Romans 12:
1 Common English Bible)
St. Paul, in his letter
to the Romans, wanted us to see life as holy and pleasing to God. That is the
measuring stick we are supposed to use, to figure out if we are doing what life
is supposed to look like, sacrifice and all. I keep hoping that maybe this time
of isolation, and being restricted to home, will give us an unexpected
opportunity to grow in our faith, to use this time to learn how we can be
pleasing to God. We will need a whole new perspective, when the day comes for
us to freely move about the country, or community, or in church.
If you need help to grow
in your faith, there are many resources out there, put in the size you can
benefit from. You can listen to devotionals, if reading is not your thing.
Maybe you need some time to exercise, or walk the dog, or recognize you have
time that you are not stuck in traffic, to put to good use in your faith
journey. Take a look at You Version. There is a website and app for that. Or
Biblegateway.com, or UpperRoom.org, Abide, Our Daily Bread. Sojourners can
deliver a thoughtful devotional to your inbox every day, as can many of these
others. Heartlight.org is one of my favorites, because it comes with pictures.
I hope as a
representative of Christ, we can show our neighbors what sacrificing for the
purpose of helping our neighbors looks like. Ms. Dvorak in her article had to look
back to the WW2 crowd to see what a whole nation doing that looked like. Now is
the time to show her and others, that we followers of Jesus can pray and do, “Not
my will, but Thine be done.”
Blessings and continued
prayers to all of you. Elaine is better today, and I thank God for that, and
thank you for all your prayers. Sacrifice is taking good care of your loved ones,
your family and your community.
Blessings, Pastor Jeff
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