Pastor Lou

Celebrate Life!

Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that."                                                                                      James 4:13-16 NIV

Although the book of James was used against Martin Luther by his opponents, I find some great insights in this little book. It is not a book that I would go to learn about the basics of grace or salvation, but it is a helpful book in our Bible that provides some critiques of those who want grace without cost, and salvation without responsibility. 

So as James looks at the future, he cautions us to remember that our tomorrows are in God’s hands. When considering the future, James instructs us to say, “If it is the Lord’s will . . .” It reminds me of my travels that in Arabic, there is a phrase that used about future events: Inshallah, “As God wills.”

This morning, I was counseling a family whose father died suddenly and unexpectedly. To drive it home, he around was my age. It sure made me think. Every day is a gift. No one truly knows the future, but God alone. May we have trust in this gracious God, and live the life so entrusted to us!

As I am writing this article, I also am trying to make the deadline. So, this May article, I am writing it just a few days after Easter. But what will happen in the next few days when you read this? I know that on my personal calendar, I have a funeral, a wedding, a trip to Medford to see my sister. But what else will happen in my life, in our congregation, or in the world? Some events are not in our calendars.

Not to knock the newsletter deadline, but in some ways, it would be helpful to have prophetic powers into the future. While I writing in mid-April, what will happen in these next few weeks? Will our worship services be inspiring? Will Communion nourish people’s lives in a deeper way? What events will we read about in the newspapers, or heard about on the T.V. news? By the time you read this, these events will be a memory.

Whatever might happen, the Church of Jesus Christ will still be around, and we will be in the season of Easter. Yes, Easter is more than a day. It is a season of the church year of seven Sundays. And in a real way, not only are these Sundays about Easter but every Sunday is a mini-Easter. We are an Easter people! Jesus is alive and living in our midst. So let us celebrate life! On a grander scale, let us look forward to that last day Easter will all finally will be complete – the beginning of everlasting life.

I may not be much of a futuristic prophet, yet here I am writing back in April, knowing that Easter will continue to lift us up, because Christ is alive. And that finally is God’s will.

L'chaim! May the God of Easter Be with You!

Pastor Lou