From the Pastor's Desk

Greetings to you all,

 By the time you hold this letter in your hand; Liz and I will either be parents again or will be soon.  Liz and I will be up to our eyeballs in dirty diapers, dirty bottles, and dirty clothes.  Whether the new baby is a boy or a girl, both of us will be in new baby mode once again.  He or she will not be able to do much, in fact he or she will not be able to do anything; we will have to do it for him or her.  The baths, the 3:00am feedings, the colds and the crying, all these things will require us to be full time parents.

 Now you know why Jesus said that we are to be like little children to enter the kingdom of God.  We can’t do anything; Jesus has to do it for us.  Babies cannot change their own diapers, or fill their own bottles, or change their own clothes for years.  So it is the same with us, we cannot make things right with our Heavenly Father, only the life, death and resurrection of Jesus can do that.  We cannot be obedient and faithful children, only Jesus can be obedient and faithful.  We cannot be courageous, or a missional church, or Spiritual, or announcers of good news, Jesus has to do it for us.

Like a two year old trying to slice vegetables, we get into trouble by trying to do things on our own power, instead of merely letting Jesus do it on our own behalf.  We end up hurting ourselves instead of helping.  But it seems that our pride just won’t let us surrender everything to Jesus.  We think that we are capable of at least helping a little bit here and there.  We can provide for our families.  We can teach and lead our families on our own.  We can help our kids when they get into trouble. 

 But, we need to remember to be like little children and let Christ do the things which only Christ can do.  We need to let Christ be the provider for our families.  We need to let Christ be the teacher and leader of our families and congregations.  We need to let Christ be the protector of our children and when our children or we ourselves get into trouble or fall into sin, it will be Christ through his cross and his resurrection that will ransom them and us from evil. 

 We are not a little dependent on Christ; like a newborn baby, we are completely and totally dependent on Jesus for everything.  Hallelujah that Jesus is very much up to the task of taking care of us all and more importantly, by his Grace, he is more than willing to do so!

 In Christ,

Rev. Mark