Everything Hasn’t Changed

 

This morning our congregation was able to gather for worship for the first time in eleven months. I’m starting to write this post on my break between services. Yup. First time back and two services instead of the one we had before. Because of limits as to how many people we can allow in the building, not having any way of predicting how many people would come, and not wanting to create any kind of sign-up list we are beginning by offering two services. Everyone isn’t ready yet to gather in a group and given the restrictions as to how many people we can have in the building two services seems to be our best option. 

Twenty-one people came for the first service. I knew them all and some I have seen a few times over this long break. Because of the need for facemasks there were a few that I could only recognize because of whom they were with. And there was one person I did not recognize at all, because she came in separately from her family. Twenty-one people, all the same, in that I knew them before all this started, and yet also all changed in some ways over the past eleven months. 

Worship was changed as well. No standing. No singing out loud. A few things taken out of our usual service, so as to reduce contact between people. Other things, such as the Lord’s Supper and collecting the offering, done differently, also to reduce direct contact. And even though I kept to my practice of going through the service by myself beforehand I messed up more than one thing once we got started.

Even with all the changes it was good to get together with God’s people at the first service, and it will be good when the next group begins to arrive in about half an hour. And that is because the God to whom we bow down in praise and worship does not change. Not ever. And not only is that for good, it is the very best good.

God tells us this himself in Malachi 3:6, which begins with the phrase:

“For I the Lord do not change.”

There are a number of ways we could dig in and understand that truth about God, the truth that He doesn’t change. The way that grabs me right now, as a preacher, preaching to a changed people in a changed time, is that I lift up to them the One who never changes. The One who has made a promise to gather a people to Himself and hold them through all things. Good times. Bad times. Times of plenty. Times of scarcity. In soft breezes and warm sunshine. Through raging thunderstorms. Whether those times happen to us literally, or metaphorically, God doesn’t change, and He never lets go of His children.

For me, this morning, it is a joy to gather with a changed people in a changed world, and to preach the good news of an unchanging God. Amen.

 

 

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.