Introduction
The people of Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church, Hickman, Neb., have organized a Spirit-Driven Task Force, bringing together almost three dozen members who have committed to a year of study, prayer, reflection, and deliberation to discern how God is calling the congregation to renewal for the sake of his mission.
This is the first of a series of weekly reflections with the aim to inspire reflection and encourage conversation among the members of the task force as we journey together in obedience to our Lord’s calling to serve him.
Meditation
When the Church gathers to hold vigil in the night before the dawn of Easter, she listens to the voice of St. Paul, the Apostle. He proclaims:
… are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life” (Romans 6:3–4, New American Bible).
Coming face-to-face with death and confronting its reality in our lives has a way of opening our eyes to the truth. We do not possess the might within ourselves to defeat this power. We can stage holding actions, we can turn and run, we can defend and defer the final engagement, but we—in ourselves—do not have the strength to defeat death.
We could lose ourselves in this insight, give up hope, and surrender. But that is not the way of faith. Instead, we who trust that Christ is our Lord, that he is risen, are ones who turn and face death. We embrace the gift that we have been baptized into the death of our Lord, the truth that we have already been buried with him in death, and the hope that we “live in newness of life” even now.
This is the great Good News of Easter, the seed and kernel of our faith that sprouts to life in the freshly turned soil of the grave. This Good News changes everything. We who live together in the Church have received a calling from our Lord, we have been blessed with a message and task, to remind one another of this Good News.
We announce in our mission:
We are Spirit-driven to invite others into God’s community to live and spread the Good News of Jesus Christ.
The last part of our mission tells us what we do, how we live, what we say because we are Spirit-driven. We have no other task than to “spread the Good News of Jesus Christ.” And so, as we make our way along the path we travel together as the Spirit-Driven Task Force, we need not lose hope in the face of death and all its symptoms, we don’t need to fear the dark corners of our life together, and we have no reason to doubt the power of God to work through us to bring refreshment and renewal to our congregation.
The assurance we rely upon comes to us in the Spirit-driven words of St. Paul:
For if we have grown into union with him through a death like his, we shall also be united with him in the resurrection” (Romans 6:5, NAB).
Amen. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
David M. Frye
April 24, 2011