Reflections & Illumination

Reflections & Illumination

We had our first official Sunday gathering in a building yesterday, what a great morning! It seems only now in looking back that I’m getting a feel for all that happened. Saturday night before Mother’s Day, I started rethinking what I was going to talk about; in part because of a few people I know who have lost their moms recently, two in just the past year. I was also thinking of those Moms who have lost their children and I saw the realization of how “Mother’s Day”, which is supposed to be a day of recognition and celebration, becomes for some a day of remembrance and sorrow which took me (don’t ask me how) to John 8 where the religious leaders of Jesus’ day took and dragged a woman before Jesus (probably naked) caught in adultery, with the sole purpose of trying to trap Him. The connection in my mind became this: the law that was given to the Hebrew people was for their benefit and protection, but it had become a means of manipulation and bondage and what was meant for good had become very bad.

When I read through this scripture again, I was more than ever before drawn to vs. 12 where Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” This passage seems to be directly connected to the account of the woman brought before Jesus and so I wondered what is this light of life exposing here? What darkness is Jesus referring to? Light is an incredible thing. The same light that exposes all that we see is also the light that blinds us if we are in a dark place and are suddenly exposed to it. In John’s passage, the darkness of adultery obviously comes to mind, but what about the darkness of the harsh religiosity that cared more about trapping someone and not at all that it would leave in its wake the complete destruction of someone else? After all, Jesus’ words were directed at that as well. Anyway, that ruined me and detoured what I ended up talking about that morning.

So, back to that morning, many of us heard people say they couldn’t believe this was our first time here on Sunday because things seemed to go so smoothly and again, looking back it really was rather amazing. Our biggest glitch was that we didn’t plan for that many people to show up and so the extra chairs were under the stage and inaccessible. But fortunately, we were able in just seconds to roll out these nifty bench things and accommodate those who were still coming in.
Someone told me that they counted over 130 people. Some were of course there because it was Mother’s Day and they came for Mom and others just came by to show us support for our first Sunday at Pioneer Jr. High, which I appreciated so much. After all was said and done, we were on a total adrenalin rush and felt that the Lord used us all and that morning to make a difference in the lives of those who came. We also felt the affirmation of a work God wants to continue doing and look forward to being a part of that work.

“Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.” -Joshua 3:5