Unless you’re a big fan of church liturgy, our recent
change to using the color green for the next 3 months probably didn’t get much
attention. Green is used for what is
called “Ordinary Time” in the church year. We use 3 other colors; white for
Christmas and Easter seasons, red on Pentecost, and purple during Advent and
Lent.
I tried to find a good explanation for why we call this
ordinary time and about the best I came up with is that it’s “ordinary” because
it’s not any of the earlier mentioned “special” days or seasons.
Ordinary as defined by what it’s not?
Every Sunday we gather to worship and praise and talk
about our always creating God; God who was before the beginning, is more than
the present, will be beyond the end of time, and loves each of us as much as
all of that.
We gather before this God and call it Ordinary Time?
I believe we need to call this Profound Time!
One of Jesus’ healings included healing a man with a
withered hand. There was nothing ordinary about this, and being done on the
Sabbath ticked off the religious leaders so they began conspiring to destroy
Him…
…however the man with the restored hand would raise it in
praise of the profound rather than say “let’s just stick with the ordinary.”
Jesus could have waited until sundown when Sabbath was
over and then healed the man’s hand and steered clear of the whole
confrontation.
Instead he opened hearts to God’s profound presence,
power, compassion and joy.
Thanks be to God that God sees there’s nothing ordinary
about any of that.
Join us Sundays at 10AM in praise of the profound.
Together We Serve,
Pastor Mike