“Let’s go to the house of the Lord”. Or, as you may have heard said: “Time for Church”. Both Vicar Jeremy and I are PK’s (Pastor’s Kids) and we had little choice when it came to ‘going to church’. It was simply ‘the way it was’. But you know what? We love going to church! Sometimes it wasn’t all that easy or inspiring or engaging from our perspective, but we learned to love church and all that it means for us as God’s people. We came to understand that it wasn’t so much about us and our likes and preferences, but about the Lord. It was that communal place where God’s people gathered – warts and all – and God visited with us. We heard his Word. We prayed, we praised and thanked. We sang hymns and songs and psalms. And there in that place, God continued to feed and nurture us in our faith.
We also learned that church isn’t bound by a building, but rather is that place where God is: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them”. There were times we couldn’t gather for worship – like in these last 2 weeks of COVID isolation. But whenever we are apart, we still look forward to getting back together with God’s people.
God was there with us in our splendid isolation, but there is something more for us when we gather as a congregation in worship.
In each of the three readings set for today we find this theme on being together, on shared worship, on God being revealed or manifested through
his Word – especially as we come together for worship.