Another school year begins. For the church, that means we are about to re-experience the same annual events and all the same liturgical seasons, Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost. For students the repetition is even more noticeable as another year of math, science, and history classes have begun, and homework, exams, and sporting events await over the next twelve months.
As much as it appears we are doing the same things repeatedly, the 2018/2019 year will also be different than the last. Kindergarteners are now 1st graders, 5th graders are 6th graders, 8th graders are high school freshmen, and high school graduates are off at colleges, trade schools, or getting started in the workforce. The new year brings fresh opportunities to learn and grow, even if we go through the same motions all over again.
The same is true for our congregation at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church. The kids are getting older and learning new things, confirmation will say hello to a new batch of 6th graders, and another group of graduates has left to go serve God in their new vocations within their new communities. But it’s not just students. Everyone in the church will face new challenges, hear new sermons, attend new Bible studies, and get to know yet another new vicar!
Amidst the old and the new this year brings, we shift our focus to rejoicing in the Lord. Last year, you spent a full year pausing in the middle of the third petition of the Lord’s Prayer. I was only here for the final month of that church wide theme of Thy Will Be Done, but it was obvious to me how big of an impact that had on the members at Our Redeemer.
I pray that our new theme, Rejoice!, will have a similar impact by the end of next summer. It will certainly present us with its own blessings and challenges. I already anticipate the groans in my own heart as we go through the liturgy and sermons all calling me to rejoice. Sometimes I feel like rejoicing, but there are also many times when I do not. I suspect that by the end of this vicarage year, I will be quite ready to take a break from rejoicing. However, it is through this steady repetition that we learn what it really means to Rejoice!
Rejoicing in our Lord, Jesus Christ, is not about how we feel. We will have plenty of days and weeks over the next year when rejoicing will be the last thing we want to do. Yet we will come together and learn to rejoice despite the way we feel. It is a skill that most of the world cannot learn, but as members of Christ’s, who know that God’s will is that we have forgiveness of sins, salvation, and life everlasting, we can and should rejoice at all times and in all places.
Rejoicing in Jesus is about turning our eyes to the cross, where Jesus died for our sins, and to the empty tomb, where Jesus rose in victory over death. Praise God when we can rejoice with our feelings, and praise God that we can rejoice without them. This new church year will be full of chances for us to come together as a congregation to practice rejoicing in both the good and hard times, and when it proves challenging, we can remember along with the prophet Isaiah the reason why we rejoice:
“I will greatly rejoice in the LORD; my soul shall exult in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation.” (Isaiah 61:10)
Rejoice!
-Vicar Otterman