From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
~Matthew 4:17~
As I sat down to write, I turned off the news, which was filled with both the good news of the CDC guidelines that offer hope that the pandemic will soon be a distant nightmare and the horrible news of rockets being launched in Israel and Palestine. The past several months have been like that: a constant bombardment of both horrific and promising news that we do not have time to process before the next onslaught of information bombards us. The last several months have been defined by pandemic, gun violence, racial conflict, political dissension, and a general sense of both division and isolation. It’s enough to break your heart.
Over and over again, our lives are defined by the catastrophes in the news that break our hearts. It seems as if current events define the boundaries of our lives. Our entire world was dramatically changed twice by wars that spanned the globe in the early Twentieth Century. The assassinations of two Kennedys and Rev. Dr Martin Luther King Jr. changed an entire generation. Future generations were impacted by the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger and the shattering impact on September 11, 2011. These moments, these days define how we perceive the world. We focus on the horrors, then shake our heads in despair. “What is the world coming to,” we sigh. We wonder if we can ever recover… ever heal.. ever move forward into God’s healing space. But, Jesus shows us a different way. Instead of defining his life and ministry by current events, he looked beyond those boundaries and pointed us in the direction of God’s Holy place. The events of our world are important but Jesus reminds us that it is even more important that we keep God’s of wholeness and peace at the center of our lives. It is not that the shattering events of our time matter less; it is that God’s love is more powerful than any damage human beings inflict on each other. So let us give this day back to the God of history. May you instead receive Christ’s sacred peace, and may you share that peace with one another.
Blessings,
Pastor Katie
Pastor Katie
