Pastor's Blog: Returning To Our Roots
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I bought a pickup truck this week. When the week began, I had not anticipated doing so. I had borrowed my father-in-law’s truck while my SUV was being worked on; and while I had the truck, my father-in-law asked if I might try to sell it, because he assumed there would be a much better market for it in Birmingham.
But a funny thing happened the more I drove the truck. I was taken back to my days in rural Alabama, where no right-standing young man would have thought of driving anything but a pickup. I remembered good times growing up and how I learned to drive in my father’s store pickup. The more I drove the truck, the better it felt, until I just decided to purchase the vehicle for myself.
My experience has reminded me of how too often we veer from our foundations because of the pressure to conform to others’ expectations. In an attempt to fit in we sometimes get away from the things that formed us in the first place. It rarely happens consciously; it’s more a gradual creep, but before we know it, we find ourselves in a place where we have relieved ourselves of those commitments, even to the point that we don’t ever remember having made them. Then, an unexpected experience or encounter jogs our memories and we recall those better days; and if we’re wise, we do something to reclaim them.
I believe the Easter season works in something of that way. Because Easter represents a new beginning, celebrating its significance can take us back to what’s most important in life -- the triumph of hope over despair, possibility over resignation, and life over death. Participating in Easter worship as we did last Sunday stirs something deep inside of us that can cause some to rethink why they may have stayed away from worship as much as some of us have.
So, you should know that we’ll be meeting this Sunday at the same times as last Sunday, and because every Sunday is a “little Easter,” the services this coming Sunday will be marked with the same sense of celebration. I invite you to return. After all, a little drive down “memory lane” never is just about the past; it’s more about taking advantage of the future, but in a way that represents our truest selves and what at our core God created us and Jesus is redeeming us to be.
'Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first” (Revelation 2:4-5a).