From the Pastor's Pen

Dear friends,

Before I begin my devotional for today, I want to let you know that I am going to be reducing my Daily Devotional writing moving forward.  When I first started writing devotionals over a year ago, everything had been closed down because of the new Coronavirus. I expected our people might be uneasy, maybe even frightened and likely lonely.  So I thought a daily word in one’s email box might remind us all that our lives are in God’s hands and God can be trusted.  I thought this devotional writing would last a couple of months which stretched on through the summer surge and then the winter surge and into this spring!  As we are moving into the hopefulness that has come with vaccinations and the warmer weather it seems a good time to move from six devotionals a week to two.  My intention is to write on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  I hope twice weekly will be useful for now.

So… I wonder if any of you noticed the pansies that had been newly planted in the flower beds in the islands in the East parking lot on Sunday when we gathered for worship.  I first noticed them on Saturday when I was checking out the set up for Easter Sunday.  I had been watching the trees and bushes hoping for some color pop for Easter day.  I had not planned on pansies.  I have no idea who put them in the ground, but realized immediately they were an Easter gift to our congregation for our first gathering together this year!

Easter is all about surprising kindness.  The resurrection was a huge surprise even though Jesus had been telling his disciples for weeks that he would rise from death.  I’m sure they were too hung up on Jesus’ predicted sufferings to think about resurrection.  So it was a surprise!  It was a surprise of kindness because God had every reason to visit anger on the earth and it’s people for the way humanity treated his beloved son.  I’m sure the disciples were particularly aware of their own failings in faithfulness to Jesus.  But God did not act in anger but rather in steadfast, perfect, merciful love for the creation that had acted so despicably.  God acted in infinite, surprising kindness.

So thank you to whoever it was that acted in surprising kindness by planting pansies for our Easter celebration.  You have reminded us of the remarkable grace of God that never quits!

Peace,

Pr. Sally