“Come let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the Lord our Maker”.
Psalm 95:6
Where is your focus in these difficult days of our life together in the world? For many here in our community the focus is on a new facemask law that forces us to wear one when we are out in public and enter in to closed spaces with others. We focus on the latest results of the virus in our community, country and world - especially the world next door to us in the United States. Our focus is on what we can do and what we can’t do. Who can we safely gather with, how many can we gather with and how close can we stand with others? Who is in our bubble?
We get a little paranoid after a while and feel hemmed in and cranky! We hunger for the freedoms of the old days before Covid-19 when we could do whatever we wanted within reason. Part of that included going to church with family and friends, singing the hymns of faith and receiving Holy Communion. Today that has changed for us to a large degree.
How can we feel scared about going to church to worship? Is this an example of our lack of faith or just being responsible in a pandemic time? None of us want to get sick or perhaps worse, die because of mixing too close with other people.
The invitation of our God in Psalm 95 still stands. We are so thankful to all those who have been working diligently behind the scenes to help us worship remotely on line for the last few months and now as we arrive at the second Sunday in August to be able to open the church again for corporate worship, even if it is a bit paired down as we start without singing and communion. We gather together in the safest manner possible with our friends who can come to hear the word of God together in the family of faith, and to lift our prayers together to our holy God.
Our prayer is that we will be blessed by this time of worship together and with the gift of hearing and seeing our friends find something of the former time before the pandemic that lifts our spirits and fills our souls with joy! The invitation is there from our God, “Come let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.”
God bless us in the family of faith as we worship in the house of the Lord or if we must in our living rooms at home, strengthened by His word and focused for service together in His name.
~ Pastor Roger Ellis
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