Pastor Andy’s corner

Pastor Andy’s Corner

 

 

Transition times.

Life is full of them . . . times of transition.

As Eve allegedly said to Adam as they were leaving the Garden of Eden, “We are living in a time of great transition.”

 

Transition times.

No times are more filled with possibility and promise. No times are more filled with peril and despair.

In transition times, everything is possible, and everything could fall flat and fail.

Think about every time you started a new school.
Think about the first time you moved out of your parent’s home. Think about the SECOND time you moved out of your parent’s home. (Maybe DON”T think about the third time you moved out of your parent’s home!)
Think about when you graduated from high school or college.
Think about when you got married.
Think about when your first child was born.
Think about when your first child got married.
Think about the first day you were officially “retired.”
Think about the first day that is tomorrow.

 

But let’s not get too flowery too soon. The rabbi and novelist Chaim Potok (1929-2002) summed it up in his autobiographical novel In the Beginning (1975): “All beginnings are hard.” It is hard to be a new baby. It is hard to start a new school. It is hard to move to a new home. It is hard to be a new teenager. It is hard to be a new husband or wife. It is hard to be a new parent. It is hard to be a new widow or widower. It is even hard to be a new convert, a new disciple, even of Jesus the Christ. The two disciples that Jesus ran into on the road to Emmaus were traveling to Emmaus  basically as rats fleeing a sinking ship.  The tumult and tragedy of that transition week in Jerusalem had deeply traumatized them.

 

Talk about “difficult.” Jesus had been arrested, convicted, condemned, tortured, crucified, and entombed. Adding insult to injury was the disturbing report they had received from some women in their group, a report that Jesus’ body was no longer in its tomb. Here was a transition that had left the disciples in the throes of PTSD (Post-Traumatic Shock Disorder).  I am sure many of us have gone thru rough times and wanted to do nothing more than crawl into a hole until it all blows over. 

 

 I was visiting 8 yr. old Schmide Price from Haiti, at St. Joe's Hospital after church one morning, she's is here for corrective heart surgery but developed pneumonia then a blood infection.  The doctors prescribed up to 6 weeks of IV antibiotics to clear her of the infection.   She and her mother are so unbelievably poor, she was telling me how Schmide has not had much schooling because of her frail health, yet everyone has noticed that she is very smart and picks up on everything very quickly.  If she wasn't here now, I am most certain that she would have died by now in Haiti.  Even with some difficulties going on in my own life right now, I left the hospital thinking about how incredibly blessed I am in spite of it all.  This girl is the sweetest, friendliest person you can imagine and yet she has only known struggle and heartache in her short life so far.  She is finishing her anti-biotic treatment on Wed. and now has to wait 3 months before she can have her corrective heart surgery!  She and her mom will be staying with their relatives who live in PA until then, I have to apply for a visa extension for them right away. 

 

In light of what Jesus has done for us, how will we handle adversity?  Will we run and hide? Or will we stand up in faith that God is with us, stand up to the forces in the world that seek to tear us down and hold us back?  I pray that together we will do what is necessary to be the body of Christ in the world, in our own church, in the life of everyone who needs to know Him.  Hope to see you in church with us soon!  

 

Yours in Christ, 

 

Pastor Andy