BUSY! BUSY! BUSY! Isn’t this supposed to be summer? And yet, we have more going on than ever at Covenant! Perhaps most importantly, we have the CONCERT FOR NEPAL tomorrow. Let me just take a moment to offer some special gratitude to all of those who are working to make this happen! There are so many working with the Nepal team to make this concert a reality, and I fear I would leave someone out. The fact is, most of you have been contributing in some way, and for that, I am so very THANKFUL! I do want to offer a special thanks to our Mission Chair, Bonnie Little, for doing such a phenomenal job organizing all of this. Like I said, most of you are contributing in some way to this effort, and somehow, Bonnie has managed to keep us all fairly organized. THANK YOU BONNIE!
Amidst the busy-ness of preparing for the concert, we also have been preparing for VBS, a Presbytery Meeting (on the same day as the concert!), a near future visit from Scott MacLennan to tell us how the relief efforts are going, new Sunday School classes, and so much more! I know many of you have been rushing around with all this busy-ness, not just the church staff.
I did want to reflect on that busy-ness though, because I think the scripture lesson speaks to this in some way. In Mark 5 this week, a man named Jairus asks Jesus to come heal his daughter, who is extremely ill. On the way, Jesus is interrupted by another woman in need of healing. By the time Jesus arrives at the young girl’s bedside, she has died. Doesn’t that just seem to reflect how we feel about busy-ness some time? We are focused on so many things and sometimes a ball gets dropped, and catastrophe ensues! Now, in the case of Jesus, he simply brings the young girl back from the dead to turn tragedy into miracle! If only we all could do such things!
But there is another underlying message that isn’t just about Jesus’ ability to handle busy-ness with miracles. There is amazing grace in this passage. Can you imagine if Jesus had just refused any time or healing on the other woman by just saying, “Sorry, I got a little girl to cure, I’ll get to you later.” One of the things that most marked this woman was that her disease had cut her off from the community. Jesus refused to be a part of the system that continued to ignore her needs. In so doing, the other thing that was so important seemingly went undone. The grace comes in the fact that the other important thing wasn’t completely lost. By the grace of God, it all worked out in the end.
Though our first temptation is to say, “Yeah, but Jesus performed a miracle to make sure it worked out.” Though this is true, I think the lesson comes in thinking that sometimes when we drop the ball when things are busy, by the grace of God, somehow that thing we missed will be handled in a different way. Jairus’ people thought there was only one way out of this solution—healing before the young girl died. Jesus shows us that kind of small thinking isn’t the only way that God deals with problems. When a ball gets dropped or an issue gets missed, by the grace of God, other doors can be opened.
This can be a reminder to us to trust that in the midst of our busy-ness, God can transform chaos into healing. Sometimes we will miss things, but sometimes…that can lead to more amazing ways of handling a problem than we could have imagined. It also comes as a reminder to extend grace to other people. We all get busy. We all drop the ball. We all miss things. The point is not to scream at someone when that happens, but to look outside the box of our small thinking and come up with new and innovative ways to address the problems. We may not be able to bring people back to the dead, but if we think more like Jesus about problems, we just may find new ways to address problems that seem beyond fixing.
Amidst our busy-ness, keep this in mind. Extend Grace, and be aware of outside the box opportunities to find God’s miracles in our midst.
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