June 15, 2021
Nadia Bolz-Weber, in one of her e-reflections last week, helped me get from my heart to my head. She described what I’ve been feeling as we come out of this 15 plus month pandemic.
The joy has been absolutely overflowing at times. The full return of worship almost tearfully joyful. Children doing church like only children can do. (Thanks, parents for making this happen!) A recent Global Missions meeting without masks erupted often into laughter. Oh, witty repartee, how I missed you!
I’m sure, however, that I was not normal before the pandemic much less after this experience. I’ve changed in a lot of ways, and so has much of my world. I’m not sure I want everything to go back to the way it was, and yet the loss is real and so much is missed.
The pandemic changed us all, collectively and individually. Maybe even in ways we haven’t yet recognized.
Pastor Bolz-Weber lifted up Lazarus who was raised not from a pandemic but from death itself.
She wrote: “What was Lazarus like, having been dead in his own tomb for several days and then raised by Jesus. What had shifted in the darkness of his own tomb? How long did it take his eye to adjust to the light? I bet that part hurt. I wonder if Lazarus was filled with resolve, given another shot at life. He will never take his sister for granted again. He will always say please and thank-you. He will not squander one more precious moment of life getting angry in traffic.
“Or maybe he had changed, truly changed, and Mary and Martha treated him as though he hadn’t, and he didn’t know how to stop playing the part because he didn’t want to make them uncomfortable, but that was killing him all over again. Surely he changed in ways that were not visible to those who were “just glad to have him back”.
“This is all of us right now,” she asserted.
She’s right! I know that we’ve all come out of a 15 month tomb! We are all adjusting to our new realities, our new selves, our new lives. Easier said than done, of course, but better than the alternative.
The timing of all this seems significant, if not helpful, for Prince of Peace Lutheran Church. The pandemic has shaken things up. Faithful staff leaders have retired or moved. A new associate pastor arrives in a matter of weeks. Once thriving ministries are emerging from their necessary shelters with new wisdom, passion and plans. New ministries, and new configurations for ministry, are being born. Relationships old and new are developing authentically. Households are reevaluating and re-prioritizing what is truly valuable to them. God has been faithful to us. It fills us with joy, for sure. Even as we change and discover what else has changed. But we know what God has done and we’re ready to live this gift of life.
It is going to take a little while to sort it out. But our realities are the same as they were for Lazarus. God has graciously brought us out of darkness unto light! And God is with us now, and forever.
Ahhh. I feel better already. And looking forward!
Pastor Jim Wilson