PASTOR’S WORD
Dear friends,
It has been a while since I have checked in or shared with you. Like many of us, I have been immersed in the mess of grief and pain that has engulfed our community and the world. So many in our community and people known to me have lost loved ones. This pandemic is unrelenting, coming to us in waves of suffering and death. It steals our joy and keeps us in a place of fear. I don’t know when it will all end. Like sea waves, just as we think we have seen the worst, another wave rises in the horizon and threatens to engulf us.
And yet, during all this darkness, there’s hope. Darkness and death shall not prevail. In the words of the Psalmist, “Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning.”
Look around friends! This is a new season. Spring has sprung. The desolation of Winter has morphed into the blooming kaleidoscope of colour in the Spring flowers and the greening trees and grass. Life has been awoken. The birds have regained their joyous melodies. This is evidence of the faithfulness of God. This tells us that the Winter of death brought about by the pandemic and other forms of pain will soon turn into a Spring of life and celebration. It is so ordained by the God we worship that death shall not have the last word!
As you now know, the Methodist Church of Southern Africa has its hybrid Conference this week. One of the poignant moments of Conference is the service of remembrance where the ministers who have passed away are remembered. This year we remembered 42 ministers who have been called to higher service in the space of 12 months. And yet, in the midst of the pain, a new cohort of ministers wait to be ordained, called to pastor the flock of God for such a time as this. God continues to contradict the powers of death and pose that question, “Death, where is your sting?”. Please pray for these ordinands as they are sent into the mission field.
As a community we continue to have our virtual services. But they have their limitations. How I long to see all of you face to face! There is a glimmer of hope that this may happen in the near future. As more of us are vaccinated and the statistics seem on the downward trend, we may see each other soon in person. Please get vaccinated. While there are those who continue to use social media to spread the anti-vaccine message, scientists and medical evidence stand to prove the effectiveness of the vaccine. There is clear evidence that most of the people who are being hospitalised, and especially those who proceed to high care and ICU are unvaccinated. It is clear that the sooner most of us get vaccinated and achieve herd immunity, the sooner we will resume normal life.
I have been encouraged by how several of us continue to make time to deepen their spirituality in the past few months. The Foundations for Discipleship course concluded about a month ago. I and some of you are currently attending the Lord, Teach Us to pray course on Mondays. Not only do we fellowship together, but we get to wrestle with the deep questions of what it means to be Christ followers. In addition to this, our fellowship groups continue to grow and bring us together. The faith journey can be quite lonely to do by yourself. Please join a fellowship group friends and when another opportunity comes for a course or retreat, please make time to attend.
We are running a survey to check in on how we are all doing – to ask that good Methodist question – “how goes it with your soul?”. Please respond and send your form so we know how we can provide for your pastoral needs.
There is a lot of friends. And I know you are all going through a lot. But please keep the faith. Encourage and support one another. Remember always that we all belong together. To borrow from Martin Luther King Jnr:
“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
Continue to hold the sick and the grieving in your prayers. Pray unceasingly.
Death shall not have the last word. John Wesley puts this beautifully when he writes, “The best of all is, God is with us.”
Grace and peace.
Akhona