Who is Christ to us?

During the season of Epiphany, we frequently ask ourselves, “Where is God?”  To be known and found in Jesus Christ opens up a new meaning for us.  It is the New Wine of the Gospel.  The New Wine is Jesus as his Gospel brings radical and daring change.  It challenges the old, traditional beliefs and leads us to a new understanding. 

The New Wine is love.  It is the love of God that is manifested in Jesus.  The Wine of Love is the kind of love that is unmerited, unconditional and unlimited.  It is the kind of love that cannot be earned.  This New Wine is a free gift and is also the grace of God. 

The New Wine is faith, where we move on into 2009 knowing that Christ is with us always.  The faith journey is one of the hardest issues that we, as Christians, struggle with. 

Trying to live the Christian life on a daily basis is not an easy task.  The temptations and seductions of the world always seem to win in the end.  Often times, we lose sight of Christ during times of turmoil.  Jesus is still ready to listen to each one of us, not merely as the one who sits on the Great Judgment Seat, but as the one who knows all the pains of being fully human…  As the Letter to the Hebrews says: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.  Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”  (Hebrews 4:15-16)

And so, Jesus knows what we’re going through: all the pain and fear and sadness, along with all other emotions.  He knows this simply because he was fully human.  And so, just as Jesus compassionately listened to the men on the road to Emmaus, he listens to us today. And once he became real for them, once the men on the road to Emmaus made the long interior journey from their heads to their hearts, Jesus vanished out of their sight – unseen but always with them – not limited by the limitations of the flesh but able to be everywhere at all times.  In becoming their friend, Jesus opened the way for friendship with God, a friendship which is stronger than even death.

The same offer goes for us.  As we allow Jesus to travel the distance from our heads to our hearts, we also allow Jesus to become for us no mere concept, but a living, breathing person – our friend – in fact the most intimate of friends because he knows us from the inside out.  The barriers between us and God crumble, just like the veil in the temple was torn in two – from top to bottom. 

It doesn’t matter what we have or don’t have, because in spite of all of our limitations and failings we are God’s treasures.  God dwells in us and we dwell in God; and nothing can destroy that intimate and eternal relationship.  We finally realize, because we know in our hearts and minds that what was proclaimed as we were baptized the truth of all truth: “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.” (BCP 308)  And we dwell with Jesus mot one hour a week but every second of every day of all eternity.  That is where Jesus is.  In the New Wine that we pour out to each other on a daily basis…

Your faithful servant,
Margie

Welcome to 2009.  I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas and a happy time bringing in the New Year.  At my house the foot ball games have taken precedence so we even missed the dropping of the crystal ball at Times Square. I am thankful that I like football.

We have now sent the money we made on the food and craft fair to the three organizations that we selected.  We made a total of $3718.41 and sent each organization $1239.47.  The selections were the Thompson Child and Family Focus, The Union Mission and the Episcopal Relief Fund. I say that is pretty good and I want to thank again everyone who contributed and particularly those who made purchases. With out the purchases we would have gotten nowhere.

For our meetings if you want to add a name to the lunch  list  or take a name off the list please let Sadie Carol and Deedie know.  You are welcomed to bring guest however do let Sadie Carol know by Monday morning before the luncheon and be in touch with Deedie.

We are still saving the bar-codes on the Campbell soup labels, the BOXTOP$ on certain items, and aluminum cans for CPC.  Please deposit them at the parish house except for the aluminum cans.  The cans can be left in the kitchen at the administrative building.

In February our meeting will be Wednesday the  4^th and Ash Wednesday will be on the 25^th. See you soon.

Sisters in Christ,
Ruthie G.

Note from Kitchen Committee:  Please return any items to the kitchen (tablecloths, dishes, serving utensils, etc…) and if  you have any items that are in the parish house, please take them home.  Thanks!!

She had a round of chemo last week and is doing well.  Cards are welcome.  Her home address is 531 Franklin Street, RR, NC  27870

We have added 24 new niches to the Columbarium in the Dunn Garden.   At this time, they are being offered for sale at the price of $1,000.00.  This is an introductory price.  As of June 1, 2009, the price will increase to $1500.00.  Please give this careful consideration and let us know if you would like to purchase a niche.  You can contact Margie Holm, Tony Short or Bob Burke.

The Order of the Daughters of the King is a spiritual sisterhood of women dedicated to a life of prayer, service and evangelism.  We make acommitment to Jesus as our Savior and we follow Him as Lord of our lives.

Please join us in celebration at the 11:00 am service on Sunday Feb. 1st at fifteen new Daughters are admitted to the order, our new officers are installed and our new chapter is instituted.  There will be a reception in the parish house after the service.  Everyone is welcome.

For His Sake
Frances Jones

January 11th is Outreach Sunday, and we will raise money for Stop Hunger Now.  In late January, our youth group will participate in a food packaging event along with the youth from the Presbyterian and Methodist churches.  As you may recall from our event last year, we raised money in advance for the food supplies and supplemented it with Outreach funds.  Our pledge this year is $900.  Let's support our youth!         

Living God, we rejoice in your promises of blessing to those who die in the Lord; especially, the Rev. Dr. Luther Kyle Baugham and Kerry Sulliven, so strengthen our understanding of the light and peace which they now enjoy in Christ, that we may find consolation in our sorrow, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

CHILDHOOD FAITH: Poet Christian Wiman says that if you return to the childhood of your faith after long wandering, as he did, people with a secular orientation will suspect that this shift is due to some unconscious, psychological motivations.  But Wiman says you don’t just return to the faith of your childhood “unless you’ve just woken from a decades long and absolutely literal coma.”  The life you’ve lived in the meantime will have an affect on your faith, “which means, of course, that even the staunchest life of faith is a life of great change.  It follows that if you believe at 50 what you believed at 15, then you have not lived – or have denied the reality of your life.”  (The American Scholar, Winter, 2008)

The family of James Lyerly, who was responsible for the construction of the beautiful wooden reredos behind our existing altar, recently made a donation to our church of a set of sanctus bells.  They will be used most Sundays during Communion in a liturgical tradition that has been established over the history of the Christian Church.

Sanctus bells, also called altar bells, are a set of attached bells (or a single bell) kept near the altar and rung at several points in the Eucharistic Prayer.  Our set has four bronze bells that are carefully tuned so that when rung together they create a soft, slightly discordant sound that is still pleasant to the ear,  a sound not unlike the ringing of a rotary-dial telephone.

The practice of ringing bells during worship comes out of Jewish traditions from the time of Christ (as do several of our other current practices, such as singing the psalms). The current use of altar bells dates from the 1100s when the practice was canonized by the Catholic Church.  The bells were rung at three points in the Eucharistic Prayer.  First they were rung at the outset of the Prayer when the priest called upon God to change the elements of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.  Second and third, they were rung when the bread and wine each were presented to call the congregation’s attention to the mystical action of transubstantiation taking place since only the priest and those assisting him were present at the altar, which was usually behind a screen, and the congregation could not see what was going on.

Sanctus bells made the jump from Catholicism to Anglicanism after the Reformation, but since transubstantiation was not part of Protestant beliefs, the bells took on a new significance.  While the bells were used, as before, at the presentation of both the consecrated bread and wine to the congregation, now they were rung in celebration of the gifts of the blessed elements to the people (remember that we, the people, first give the elements to God at the Offertory).  The bells were also rung at the Great Amen at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer as an invitation to the people to come to the altar to receive Communion.

My first experience with sanctus bells was while attending worship at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Durham, which is Bishop Johnson’s home church.  The music director shook a set of bells similar to ours at the appointed places in the Eucharistic Prayer.  I thought it was a quaint and unusual thing to do until I moved to Rocky Mount and attended St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church where a single bell is struck at the same points in the service by one of the acolytes.  In each instance, the use of the bells provided a meaningful context to Communion for me.

As more and more Protestant churches—even Methodists and Baptists—adopt liturgical practices such as weekly Communion and washing of feet that we once found unusual, we owe it to ourselves to rediscover the deeper meanings behind these symbolic acts.  I hope that the addition of our sanctus bells to the celebration of the Eucharist enhances your worship experience at All Saints’ Church.

We will begin a Bible Study in the Parish House on Wednesday, January 14, 2009.  This will begin at 6:00 with a simple soup dinner from 6:30, then Bible Study at 6:30.  Summerlee will be teaching on the Parable of Jesus.  Please let us know if you would like to attend.

Our Annual Parish Meeting will be held on Sunday, January 11, 2009 at the 11:00 am service.

This is a time to hear about the inner workings of All Saints’ with budget information, and other reports from our wardens and officers of this parish.  We will also elect new vestry members.   We have an excellent slate of candidates, so please prayerfully read their biographical information.  We will also take nominations from the floor.  Everyone is welcome at the parish meeting and all confirmed communicants 16 years and older are eligible to vote.