Once you were not a people…

Sunday morning, pastor Mac chose a scripture passage that has long been one of my favorites. The first time it hit me powerfully was a couple of years after we arrived here in North Carolina. The words spoke so perfectly to what had been happening at our church, and how life was taking root after a long and difficult “wilderness” experience for the congregation.

 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

1 Peter 2:9-10

Several things settled into my heart yesterday. The first was the baptism (they always touch me deeply), then the message and how it commented on this particular season of my life, and finally a simple rose in the church garden.

The child, who was maybe close to six months, must have been watching and learning at Saturday’s coronation because she had “the wave” down pat. You know, “the royal wave,” the one that involves a slightly cupped hand, rigid, and a constantly rotating forearm above a stationary elbow.

So of course I cried – or at least my eyes both filled up with tears – as I recalled the baptism of our own children – Andrew and Naomi, and our four grandchildren.

Watching such a beautiful baby girl receive the sacrament particularly made me think of our daughter. Naomi had a similar effect on the congregation when she was baptized (by Frank Beall) at Trinity Presbyterian in Pensacola in 1984, and now she has three amazing children of her own. So many years, such life experiences, and the promises we made – along with the congregation – still so vivid in my mind and on my heart.

Like Water…

I had a kind of epiphany during the message. Mac was talking about how God’s spirit isn’t necessarily twisting our arm and coercing us into “Protestant Work Ethic” action, but sometimes (ofttimes) God works on us the same way that water shapes a landscape. He read the following, printed in the service bulletin:

“Think of water as a different metaphor for God. Water rushes to fill all the nooks and crannies available to it; water swirls around every stone, sweeps into every crevice, touches all things in its path – and changes all things in its path. The changes are subtle, often slow, and happen through continuous interaction with the water…”

In God’s Presence: Theological Reflections on Prayer by Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki

The meditation helped me to feel more at ease with the current status quo Rebekah and I are experiencing, at ease resting in the knowledge that we can still grow, and learn, and be changed by the Spirit as we simply allow God to wash over us, to touch us at every level, both baptizing and shaping us all the while.

I know, always with the Garden

Finally, and almost as an extension of taking communion, Rebekah and I made our way out to the memorial garden to look at a rose that had caught my attention.

I think – and hopefully you too can see this as you take a look at the photograph – that the rose, and its thorns, and its beauty all combine to work with the church steeple and cross (behind in the background) to steer me the same way.

“Stay here, tarry a while. Just let me wash over you,” said the Spirit of God.

So you see how the cross is in the background.? But isn’t that where the Cross of Jesus must remain, constantly, underpinning all that I think, all that I write, all that I say, all that I do…?

We do not live so much in the shadow of the cross as in its light. We live in its strength, and in its victory. We live because of the Cross of Jesus. – DEREK

We do not live so much in the shadow of the cross as in its light. We live in its strength, and in its victory. We live because of the Cross of Jesus.