And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long, steals on the ear the distant triumph song, and hearts are brave again, and arms are strong. Alleluia, Alleluia! (For All the Saints)

All Saints Sunday, which we celebrate today, is my favorite Sunday of the year. I wait all year to belt out all seven stanzas of “For All the Saints,” my all-time favorite hymn. It tells the story of the saints who surround us in the great cloud of witnesses.

There’s something about verse four of the hymn that makes me tear up every time I sing it. The lyrics acknowledge that here on earth, the strife is fierce and the warfare long. We know that reality all too well, which is why the promise of brave hearts after all that has broken them here on earth and strong arms after all the ways our bodies have failed us brings me so much hope.

Together, let us sing with gusto. Let us sing about glimpses of heaven and proclaim the promise that hope is on the way. Let us be the living saints who draw strength from those who have died and gone before us, trusting in the reunion that is coming. On All Saints Sunday, and every Sunday, let us be people of hope and expectation.

As your pastor, one of the most sacred things I do is read the names of the newly baptized who have joined us as living saints this past year and the names of those who have died, taking their place in the great cloud of witnesses in heaven. It is a holy moment when together we celebrate what it means to be the body of Christ.

It is a good time to be the church, Abiding Together as the people of God in this place. Thank you for the holy privilege of being your pastor - today and all days.

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Happy Reformation Sunday! Today we celebrate our Lutheran heritage, giving thanks for the reforming of the church that began with a monk named Martin Luther and continues today.

Reformation Sunday can often feel like “God bless the Lutherans” Sunday. What we are celebrating today, however, has little to do with a dead monk, a historical movement or even a denomination. What was at the heart of the reformation movement and the reason we celebrate is that we have a God who is with us, who grounds us in moments of chaos and who is the hope to which we cling when we cannot see a future past our present struggles.

Once the presence of this loving, ever-present God had washed over him, Luther could not keep silent. His set out to reform the church in order to make this God known and accessible to the people. The heart of Luther’s reformation movement was that God was with the people, loving them, forgiving them and saving them from death not by their own actions or merit, but by God’s free gift of grace manifest in Christ. Luther wanted all to know this good news.

It is this good news that is the crux of our celebration of the Reformation. It is a knowledge of God’s love, forgiveness and constant presence with us that is so transformative that we cannot keep silent about it. It isn’t about growing a denomination, but instead about offering hope to those who have been swept up in the chaos and cannot find a way out.

So, happy Reformation Sunday! Spread the good news. The God who created heaven and earth is a God of love. Jesus’ death and resurrection offers grace and forgiveness to all. God is reaching out to us - always and forever!

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You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something.”
Psalm 139:13 (Message Bible translation)

These words from scripture describe the reality in which we live. We are fully known - inside and out - by the God who created us. God held our unformed substance in God’s hand and sculpted us from nothing into something. As God’s creation, we are loved forever and always. We cannot flee from God’s presence. God will always chase after us - arms extended - ready to carry us.

This is both our reality today and God’s promise for our future. Nothing will change God’s love for us. We are fully known and fully loved by God - always and forever.

Today we wrap up our sermon series “God Knows Us Inside Out.” For the past seven weeks, we have been exploring the emotions of joy, sadness, anger, disgust, fear and anxiety. God has woven these emotions into our being. Emotions are good and of God, so we can embrace them.

May you write Psalm 139:13 on your heart this week. Carry it with you. Know, trust and believe that God knows you and loves you.

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Last Sunday we began a seven-week sermon series titled “God Knows Us Inside and Out.” Together, we will explore what it means that God knows us inside and out as we look at the emotions that dwell inside of us and exude out of us – joy, sadness, anger, disgust, fear and anxiety. The movie Inside Out brought these emotions to life as characters operating a control board in our brains. Now, we will look at them through the lens of what means for these emotions to be created by God, known by God and part of the way we were woven together to be made in God’s image. Our emotions – all of them – are created by God for good.

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Sitting in worship a few Sundays ago, I received a text message from one of our college students. Tuned into worship on the livestream from her dorm room, she text me and Pastor Kelsey a picture of her computer screen. She was in worship that morning and messaged to let us know. My heart overflowed with joy!

It is moments like this that I realize what we are doing at Abiding Presence is working, which is to say we are making disciples of Jesus. We are passing on the faith to the next generation. We are sending people out into the world equipped to be the body of Christ, the hands and feet of Jesus. We are being the church. Being the church matters!

Then there was the picture of the Bible from a different college student’s parent. It was texted to me and Pastor Keseley with the message that it was among the last minute items packed by our college student to take with them to college.

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Hopefully by now you’ve heard me talking the past few weeks about hypothermia shelter. Abiding Presence has signed up to host the Fairfax County hypothermia shelter the week of December 29, right after Christmas. Each week of hypothermia shelters, two churches sign up to provide shelter space for up to 50 individuals for a total of 100 hypothermia shelter spaces in the county.

As I preached last week, I’ve been clear and convicted in the decision that this what we need to do (even if might not be what we want to do). This past week, that clarity was reinforced in two big ways.

First, I drove into the church parking lot early one morning to find two unhoused individuals sleeping on picnic tables in the parking lot. They weren’t disturbing anything, just sleeping quietly with all their possessions around them. The goal of hypothermia shelter is simple - keep people from freezing to death. The need for this is far greater than most of us realize.

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