Worship Services with some COVID-19 precautions
Sundays at 11 AM
“Pruning Shapes Growth”
First posted on May 2, 2021
Re-run Archive
We will continue to have live services on Sunday mornings. Eighteen months of videos are available in our Video Archive. For now, we will feature one of these re-runs on our home page every week. If there was a video you particularly liked or one you were sorry you missed you can find it in the Archive. Newsletters and the letter "To the Church Family" will continue every week.
We will continue to have live services on Sunday mornings. Eighteen months of videos are available in our Video Archive. For now, we will feature one of these re-runs on our home page every week. If there was a video you particularly liked or one you were sorry you missed you can find it in the Archive. Newsletters and the letter "To the Church Family" will continue every week.
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To the Church Family
He Walks Through Walls May 15, 2022 By John Wiederholt As passed through the Easter season, there was an opportunity to preach on John 20 About Jesus’ encounter with “doubting Thomas” but I passed on it. I didn’t feel like there was anything new I could add. I have preached on those verses several times in twenty years. But now as we are sliding from Easter to Pentecost, I feel like I missed something important. Think about Jesus’ entry into the room where the first followers are gathered along with Thomas who for some reason or other missed the first meeting with Jesus. How did Jesus enter the room? Did he really walk through the wall? How extraordinary. Other places he has bread or eats fish to prove that he is not a ghost. But here he appears to walk through to wall. What gives? There is no doubt in my mind that the resurrected Lord had the power to present himself in any way that he chose. On the road to Emmaus, he hid his true identity from men who knew him until he was ready to let them recognize him in the breaking of bread. The purpose of this was certainly to let those who came after know that the Communion and the study of the Scriptures were places where they might recognize him. |
HE WALKS THROUGH WALLS |
In this incident revealed to us in the Gospel of John, Jesus wants those who come later to faith to know that he can, if he chooses, walk through walls. The physics of this event take a back seat to its spiritual or symbolic meaning. A very long time ago I came to serve a church with a very formal long rectangular building with an elevated chancel and an even more elevated pulpit. The layout of the sanctuary and the faces of the people suggested to me that there was a barrier here between the preacher and the people that was rarely if ever breached. For a fleeting moment my mind darted back to some movie or other where the country music band was separated from the patrons of a cowboy bar by a chicken wire barrier, but I quickly snapped back to the real moment and imagined that the chancel was separated from the congregation by a glass wall. That didn’t seem right to me although it was possible that both the preacher and the people felt some sense of security by the barrier.
I thought of Jesus walking through a wall to get to Thomas. Then, I did what seemed to me to be the logical thing and stepped down from the pulpit and down from the chancel and walked through the invisible barrier to greet people sitting near the center aisle. The expressions on people’s faces showed me that an awful lot of them understood exactly what was happening. I visited that congregation not too long ago and those who were there remembered it quite clearly.
The point in this time and place is that Jesus walks through all kinds of walls and empowers us to do the same. Peter walks through a thick cultural wall to baptize the family of Cornelius. Martin Luther King jr. walked through a multitude of walls to show the unholiness of another kind of barrier. And we, the people of God, are empowered to walk through walls that separate people from God and from one another. Julie Miller has written a song about this and I have offered you the lyrics.
Blessings,
John
I thought of Jesus walking through a wall to get to Thomas. Then, I did what seemed to me to be the logical thing and stepped down from the pulpit and down from the chancel and walked through the invisible barrier to greet people sitting near the center aisle. The expressions on people’s faces showed me that an awful lot of them understood exactly what was happening. I visited that congregation not too long ago and those who were there remembered it quite clearly.
The point in this time and place is that Jesus walks through all kinds of walls and empowers us to do the same. Peter walks through a thick cultural wall to baptize the family of Cornelius. Martin Luther King jr. walked through a multitude of walls to show the unholiness of another kind of barrier. And we, the people of God, are empowered to walk through walls that separate people from God and from one another. Julie Miller has written a song about this and I have offered you the lyrics.
Blessings,
John
Resources for Helping those Suffering Food Insecurity
Grace Network
City of Martinsville-Healthy Food Hub
Food Insecurity in Henry County
Many Hands Giving Food in Henry County
PCUSA – Hunger action Congregations
A letter from our partners at Grace Network, Martinsville/Henry County
A Sparkling Church
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