Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
The Peace of the Lord be with you! Yes, Peace. Even in this strange, anxious, anything-but-ordinary time: Peace.
In an ordinary calendar year, students would be settling into their peaceful routines. In an ordinary calendar year,
parents might enjoy a slightly quieter house. In an ordinary calendar year, the leaves would be beginning to change.
Well, we all know 2020 has been anything but ordinary. Even the ordinary things don’t seem ordinary! The Church is currently in the Season of ‘Ordinary Time.’ But it does not feel like an ordinary Ordinary Time time. (Yes, that sentence was grammatically correct!) Our worship services and activities have been modified. Some, regrettably, put on indefinite hold or even cancelled.
Yet nothing in the world can disrupt the extra-ordinary work of the Church. God’s Word is still preached here! The
Sacraments are still offered here! God’s promises of forgiveness, new life and salvation are still proclaimed for you here!
The readings in Ordinary Time lead up to Christ’s Second Coming, when He will come again to judge the living and the dead, and bring His eternal, peaceful Kingdom to earth in its fullness. Everything leads up to that wonderful moment, when this strange, anxious, anything-but-ordinary world passes away and the extra-ordinary Peace of the Lord reigns forever. That’s what we Christians should bear in mind: Christ’s victory is assured. Peace is already won!
We get a foretaste of that peace in the Church—not only in worship, but also in fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ! For your own spiritual benefit, I encourage you to participate as much as you can in the months ahead.
Worship in person, if possible. Certainly online, if not. Come to as many events outside of worship as you can.
The staff at Our Redeemer have been working hard to develop next year’s Equipping Disciples plan. I know you will be enriched by it! Invite others to take part too! In this way, we can shine as an example for others—a Beacon, if you will—of God’s peace in the world.
It may not be an ordinary time. You will certainly face anything-but-ordinary struggles. (I know I won’t have an ordinary vicarage!) But Christ remains the same yesterday, today, and forever. He grants us His Peace—a peace that sends us forth into the world, bringing peace and joy and love to the earth!
LSB 920 “Forth in the Peace of Christ We Go”
1 Forth in the peace of Christ we go;
Christ to the world with joy we bring;
Christ in our minds, Christ on our lips,
Christ in our hearts, the world’s true king.
5 We are the Church; Christ bids us show
That in His Church all nations find
Their hearth and home where Christ restores
True peace, true love to all mankind.
In Christ,
Vicar Stein