And All God’s People Say…
Would You Like a Lime With That Week Five
In the darkness of the early morning, the worshipers began filling the benches of the church’s outdoor venue. The fire was already burning, providing some helpful light as folks settled in their places, as well as a little welcomed heat on the chilly spring morning. To the left of the fire was the cross, draped with white cloth and covered in fresh flowers now illuminated by the rising flame, creating a beautiful image to celebrate the resurrection.
As the time of the service approached the lone musician began singing songs of Easter unplugged on an acoustic guitar as the worshipers waited.
Now 6:30 a.m. the scheduled start time, and everything was perfectly in place for a beautiful Easter sunrise service; the fire, the cross, the music, the worshipers.
Yes, all the pieces were there, except for one, only one thing was missing.
The Preacher!
Six-thirty dragged on to 6:35 a.m., now approaching 6:40 a.m. while the music continued, the worshipers were starting to get antsy and whispering to each other.
I leaned over to Kim and said: “maybe I should go see where he is.”
I quickly walked into the building and found the pastor, Steve Vineyard, behind his desk hunched over his laptop working away.
I stood in the doorway of his office and the exchange went something like this:
“Hey man,” I said.
He spun around in his chair to face me and replied very cheerfully “hey Curt, how are you?”
“I am good,” I said. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes,” he replied, “just reviewing my sermon, why?”
“Well,” I said, “because there are a whole lot of people outside waiting for you to come out and preach the Sunrise Service.”
He bolted straight up out of his chair and stood briefly visibly disturbed by what I had just told him. He quickly collected his jacket, Bible, and sermon notes while muttering “This is my worst nightmare! I have nightmares about this kind of thing! Forgetting the service!”
We headed out the rear door towards the outdoor sanctuary and split up to not give the appearance that anything was wrong and that this was nothing more than Steve’s dramatic Sunrise Service entrance.
With the sunrise still some minutes away he hit the lectern and began the service, with surely a sigh of relief from the musician and the worshippers.
As I settled back in my seat next to my wife, in the distance I could hear sirens.
As the sirens in the background began to get louder indicating they were getting closer, once again I leaned over to Kim and whispered: “I hope they aren’t on their way here.”
Within minutes, a fire engine from the Sterling Volunteer Fire Department pulled up to our Sunrise Service. Apparently a concerned neighbor had reported a fire at the church. After a brief discussion with the firemen and a few laughs, we were able to finish our service with our fire intact.
At 6:54 a.m. the sun rose.
The sun was now up on Easter Sunday, April 1, 2018. Our service ended around 7:15 a.m. The fire engine provided the necessary comic relief and the pastor being late for the service was quickly forgotten. And Pastor Steve, it turned out, was a huge fan of fire engines. All was perfect again.
Twice in the last couple of weeks, I have been reminded of the events of Holy Week of 2018.
Kim was going through our Google photos one evening and said “look, here’s a picture of Steve,” as she found some photographs I had taken of the Good Friday service on March 30, 2018.
A few days later, while preparing for a presentation for this year’s Good Friday virtual “service” I found folded up in one of my Bibles, the instructions for my role in that 2018 Good Friday service. I was one of the eight readers assisting in the service. I was reader number four, the eighth and final reader was Steve.
My instructions were “After you read your Scripture, each of you will be helping to ‘strip the Altar’ as the lights in the sanctuary are slowly dimmed. We have eight items and eight readers…LEAVE THE LAST CANDLESTICK FOR STEVE TO CARRY OUT AS HE LEAVES THE SANCTUARY AFTER THE FINAL READING…Steve will read the eighth and final Scripture and carry the remaining candlestick out of the Sanctuary.
Bell Toll.
Though it was nice reliving those memories from the past, it was a hard reminder that in spite of the chaos of our current crisis that is affecting all of our church services, Easter at my church wouldn’t have been the same anyway. My church was broken before the disruption caused by the virus. Maybe you know because you attend my church, maybe you remember my post from January titled The Stone, but our pastor who delivered all our sermons for the last four Easter Sundays, Pastor Steve Vineyard, passed away unexpectedly in January of this year.
He would end all of his sermons by saying, “And all God’s people say…”
Only one of those sermons that I know of, was he late for.
Only one I can pretty much bet, featured a real fire engine.
And though all were meaningful to me, I can say, truly one of those sermons was life-changing for my family.
And so, this Easter’s diversion, this Easter’s “fire engine,” is in the form of a virus. On that Easter Sunday in 2018, it was the fire engine that helped us forget that the preacher, who for the only time in his shortened life, was late for a service he was to preach.
For my church, I hope that the arrival of this Easter’s “fire engine”, the Coronavirus, doesn’t have the same result it had two years ago, I hope it doesn’t cause us to forget.
Therefore, let us not allow this virus to help us forget what is really missing from this Easter season.
Because once again,
It’s the preacher.
Pastor Steve.
“And All God’s People Say…”
Amen
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy” (Matthew 5:8)
Please continue to keep those healthcare workers and their families in your prayers.
Happy Passover and Happy Easter to all.
By the way, the photo above was taken at 6:35 a.m. Easter morning, 2018. The lectern located between Willis on the guitar and the fire, as you can see, was still vacant at that time.
