There are those experiences that give you a glimpse of how things are supposed to be.
The Good Friday service our church helped launch last year is just such an experience.
Last year, we collaborated with three other churches to hold a city-wide Good Friday service. We had one service with a praise and worship team comprised of members of all the churches and short devotional thoughts from each of the pastors. We celebrated communion together and remembered the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.
It was beautiful.
And this year, even more so.
This year saw the involvement of nine different churches and required two services, both packed out. Believers from all across our city joined together to remember our Messiah and to be unified in our belief in Him, regardless of background or denominational preferences.
It was a glimpse. A glimpse of how things can be.
How things can be when we stop our petty pugnaciousness, our trilling about theologies and genealogies and presbyter pride. When we stop identifying differences and start focusing on what is central. And most important. And the nexus of what we say we believe.
That there walked on this earth 2000 years ago a man named Jesus. Who was the Son of God. Who died on a cross. And who rose again.
To save us from our sins.
And to bring us into complete unity.
His stated goal in John 17:23.
I prowled the catwalks and eagle perches of the performing arts center we used for the service, camera in hand, a modern phantom-ess of the opera, clicking away. I took in the vision of all these believers joined in song and heart.
And I got to see that glimpse of Jesus’s goal.
And delighted that we were giving Him a glimpse as well.
Of what we can be. When He is the center.
Thu, 28 Apr 2011 01:34:00 +0000julielylescarr
