Disoriented.

In tears the other morning, Jonathan glanced at me with watery eyes. The overwhelming sense of irregular school patterns and two at-home teachers (aka parents) with different pedagogical styles had finally taken its toll. He was uncertain, anxious, exhausted and unsure. Without hesitation, he balled up in tears and insisted. “I need you. I cannot do it without you.”

The toll that this pandemic has taken on so many can easily leave one empty. What more does one have to change? The end of the last school year looked different. The summer was filled with much different activities. The first four months of this school year have included smaller classes, distancing and masks. And that only partially captures the life of my first grade child. My littlest one is worn out.

I can easily find myself empty too. Advent has filled itself with different preparations. Our family has done work for a Virtual Christmas Pageant. Christmas Eve will be scaled back. I am disoriented.

Pondering the passage from Joel, it suffices to say that the people of yesteryear were worn out too. Their time in diaspora had taken a lot out of them. Living in a place that they knew but that they no longer really completely knew was tough. Everything had changed under the new rule and the new circumstances had left them disoriented. They needed. They could not keep doing it the same way. They needed God.

The prophet Joel spoke into the people’s yearning and longing with these powerful words. “Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing.” He pleaded with them by reminding them of God’s grace, mercy, patience and forgiveness. And most of all, his abundant steadfast love, he desired them to recall. God loved them.

God LOVES you! God really does love us. Despite as disorienting as this Advent and Christmas may be with traditions changing, with the strong possibility of being distant from loved ones and with a Christmas like no other, it is that night like no other long ago that reorients us. The LOVE of God breaks into our world and reorients us by coming in abounding steadfast love. We are reoriented by God’s love as God shares his family with us, his life with us and all that is his with us. God loves us. God really does LOVE you!

Worship with us this Sunday at 8:00AM, 9:30AM and 11:11AM in person at All Shepherds or 9:30AM via livestream at All Shepherds Lutheran Church on our YouTube Channel. For A Virtual Christmas Pageant, Zoom To Bethlehem on Sunday at 6PM will take place. Come be with us in the presence of the one who reorients us in the love of God.

Shepherding the Shepherds,
Pastor Craig