Emmanuel Lutheran Church

October 2021

As I write this the weather is changing. It has been hot and humid longer into the year that normal, but fall is in the air. The temperature is supposed to drop and it will feel like the season it is very soon.

I don’t know about you, but fall is perhaps my favorite time of the year. The temperature is tolerable. The leaves turn bright shades of red, yellow and orange which color the landscape. There are Fall Festivals of all kinds highlighting the apple, grape and pumpkin harvests. Fall brings with it many fond memories for me.

Fall is also a reminder to those who live in a climate of seasonal change that this portion of the earth is tilting farther from the sun and with that tilt will come the harshness of a cold, dark winter. I am reminded of Ecclesiastes 3, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”

The seasonal change is a reminder that we do not know, as Jesus points out to Nicodemus, where the wind comes from or where it goes. Even with today’s technology, the weather forecasters are always off in their predictions. What we do know is that, with amazing accuracy, the earth rotates and tilts and the seasons come and go as we make our annual trek around the sun.

So it is with God’s activity through the Spirit among us. We can’t predict what God is up to, as much as we might like to think we can. All we can do is trust in God’s wisdom over our foolish ways. This might leave us asking, like Nicodemus, “How can these things be?” In this life, we may never understand why God moves in the way God does. I often answer this difficult question by saying that we don’t understand now, but when we see God face to face, we will not need to question for our response will only be “now I understand. Thank you God.”

The pandemic has wreaked havoc on our society and the church. It has disrupted the “normal” flow of things in our daily lives. The question for the faithful to ask is “how is God using this?” It may seem disruptive now, but the Spirit is moving throughout. Where it comes from or where it goes, we do not know, only God knows. Perhaps the “season” is changing within Christ’s church and all we know for certain is that, under God’s watchful eye, perhaps the beauty and wonder of a new season is upon us. God is good.

Blessings,
Pastor Alan