For church last Sunday, I went to the traditional Lutheran service.
The service focused on John 20:21-23, in which the risen Christ
interacts with his disciples. The passage states:
“Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And
when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them,
Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted
unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.”
The children’s part of service was about how God sends us out to
forgive others, and God’s Spirit goes with us. When we find that we
have difficulty forgiving others, God will hopefully remind us that God
has forgiven us, and that will motivate us to forgive others.
The pastor’s sermon offered additional thoughts. The pastor talked
about the excuses that we have for not performing the mission that God
has given us: I can’t speak in front of people; I am not good at caring
for people; I don’t want to talk to people. The pastor said that many
of us do not want to give up doing what we want to do, when we want to
do it. He also offered suggestions of things that we can do: we can
give people a ride to church; we can talk to the person sitting by
himself or herself at coffee hour; we can sit with those who come to
church by themselves, since coming to church alone can be difficult.
The pastor then went on to say that following rules can only get us
so far. He noticed that Jesus first said “Peace be unto you.” The
pastor acknowledged that this was a standard greeting in that day, but
he believed that there is something deeper going on here. According to
the pastor, Jesus came to bring shalom. I think where he was going with
this is that we need to recognize God’s love for us first, and that can
motivate us to love others. We also need for God to bring shalom to
our lives.
I’ll just leave it at that.