Author: DeSoto Redeemer

“Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.” 1 John 3:2-3

Dear Redeemer Family:

            As we close the Church’s liturgical year, endings are revealed as beginnings, and we find that as the Christian community we live simultaneously in past, present, and future. Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.

            What seemed dead lives on, and what seemed purely memory is present, what was longed for is actually at hand. Time and its distinctions stretch and blur at this closing of the year, and the church finds itself living in the future for which it so earnestly petitions. The day of the Lord is at hand. The new age has begun.

            Here’s some imagery. The shadows are approaching. The night is lengthened. The grasses fade. Then from the shadows emerges light. From the night comes hope and the memory of saints. From the chaff comes new beginnings and the constant, sure presence of the risen Christ, transforming these days into a new beginning, a new day. The implications are startling! The reign of God is at hand. Newness has already dawned. A new day arises that is gloriously present.

            Albert Einstein once set himself this thought experiment: if I were to sit astride a beam of light, traveling at the speed of light, how would time appear? Einstein concluded from his imaginative vigil that past and future would gradually thin, until one existed in an ever-widening, ever-expanding present now. Carl G. Jung said that Holy Communion is the opening of a window into eternity, the fuller reality. For Orthodox Christians, the Holy Communion is nothing less than heaven on earth, the light of God breaking in and making of the past, present, and future one ever-expanding moment. At this transition time in the Church’s year, we are reminded of the breaking in of God’s reign into this earth.

            So we remember in these waning days the saints, those whose stories and lives have shaped our lives and the collective life of the Church: human moments of an expanding now who have lived the future of God’s reign; who bore the harvest of the Spirit’s talents as willing and open participants and who are eternally present in memory and expanding time by the pervading light of God through Christ and the Spirit.

            The lives of the saints are a part of the Church’s inheritance, and their gifts of hymns, writings, windows, and quiet acts of mercy shape the present in which we live. They are a link of rich memory to the holy story that shapes the Church’s life and our individual lives here, now. They are rays of light, the eternal light breaking into our days. Like the saints, we are cajoled to live as children of light, radiant with God’s presence in an ever-greater melding and blurring of past, present, and future. When we eat of this bread and drink of this cup, we remember the Lord’s death until he comes again.

In Christ,
Pastor Rose

“Let your face shine upon your servant, and teach me your statutes.” Psalm 119:135

Dear Redeemer Family:

“Let your face shine upon your servant…” As we come out of the “Dog Days of Summer,” August, where we have had more than enough of the sun shining upon us, I think that it is much better to have God’s face shine upon us. We have recently had a couple of just plain brutal weeks. I have had to keep telling my father, “It will get better in a few weeks.” And I have said that while wondering about the weather myself. Last night, a friend of mine in California texted me to say that they are about to have a heat wave. Seeing as we usually get their weather a couple of days later, the heat may not be over yet. Still, September usually brings an element of hope. The weather cools. The leaves start to turn. The refreshing rain comes more often. Indeed, September and October are two of my favorite months here in Missouri. They are something to look forward to. They are a blessing.

When we think about the statutes of the Lord, we usually think about the 10 Commandments. Or, if you know Jewish Law, the 613 laws that they are to observe. But there are also laws and restraints placed upon creation itself. That includes the cycle of the seasons, and even the weather at times. They also obey God’s limits which are placed upon them. Although, sometimes, I think that they may push the limits.

To have God’s face shine upon us is truly a blessing. And God’s statutes are also a blessing, which ever form they may take. They keep us safe and lead us in the ways which God would have us to go. Although we may sometimes resist them, like rebellious teenagers, ultimately, we know that God gives us things for our good. That’s why the greatest commandment is “to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and soul, and mind.” And a second one is like it, “to love your neighbor as yourself.” As we follow in those ways, God’s face will surely shine upon us, and we will learn the rest of the things that God would have us to do.

Enjoy God’s many blessings for you. And walk in His ways. And let us hopefully enjoy some more pleasant weather as creation also follows its course.

In Christ,
Pastor Rose