Eastertide

Eastertide is the season where we get to hear a little each Sunday from the book of Acts, a record of the wild experiences of Jesus’s first disciples as they went into the world to tell the good news. After having taken a good look inside ourselves during the season of Lent, in Eastertide Jesus pushes us from the nest and we find ourselves, like those disciples, bumping our way through actual discipleship in the real world.

It’s exciting, especially at first, when the memory of the risen Lord is fresh in our minds. Think of the last time you had a personal revelation, or you read a book you adored; you couldn’t wait to tell someone.  But at some point the newness wanes and the vigor you once felt is no longer enough to properly fuel your work in the world.

That is, I believe, where your Christian community comes in. For the members of the choir, for instance, we feel refreshed in our knowledge of the risen Lord when we work intensely on an anthem and it comes together on a Sunday morning. We hit just the right chord and there is something sacred born that is more than the sum of the individual notes. In children’s church, interactions amongst children who had just met were of course hesitant in September; now those same children huddle together in excitement as acolytes, waiting for the procession to begin. I see God at work every week when going about my responsibilities at church. Parishioners show up, without fanfare and probably sometimes without thanks, to collect and deliver food to the food pantry, to water the plants inside and out, to make sure the children’s activity bags are freshly stuffed and have a rotating selection of activities.

Much of God’s work is difficult and tedious. Not every gathering of the faithful produces a golden moment you treasure, but it is because we did not neglect to meet that we gather what we need in order to do what Jesus sent us to do. This Eastertide, as you flap your fledgling disciple wings, I hope St. Andrew’s can be your place to flock and renew yourself week after week.

Ginny Chilton, Minister of Music