The Bungee Cord. 4-11-23

Hello,

I got home today from a quick visit with my folks and my brother’s family out in Davenport, Iowa. As always, when I visit Davenport, I attend St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, my brother’s family’s and my parent’s church. It is a vibrant church of several thousand people with a large exceptional choir, and a large and powerful pipe organ.

So, you can imagine that Sunday’s Easter service was explosive. All stops were pulled! On the processional hymn that proclaimed Christ’s resurrection victory, the sound of the organ was a digital copy of the sound that rolled the stone away from Jesus’ tomb. Its power shook the walls and our bones. The volume of the music drowned out any other sound in that sanctuary. Every voice of guilt, shame and sin was driven from my ears. Even as I sang at the top of my lungs, I couldn’t hear myself singing. The noise of the world was transformed into a mouse’s whisper as it met the reverberating sound of God’s eternal victory. Any person walking into that sanctuary shouldered with burdens and fears, found those burdens and fears disintegrated into flakes of dandruff blown off their shoulders by a tornado of the Holy Spirit. The power of the resurrection over death was palpably felt in that room where an altar, which carries the remembrance of a casket, takes center stage. Alleluia!

After worship, we returned to my brother’s house, where I went up to my bedroom and pulled up the Easter Service that my wife had attended, and I would have attended save for my Davenport visit. It was the service from the church to which we belong and weekly attend, Bethel Lutheran Church of Bethel/Stahlstown, Pennsylvania. It is a church that lies in the ridge country of the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania, a part of the country where pick-ups, long beards, and shotguns are the fare of the folks. The people of Bethel Lutheran Church take great care of the church where the 30-40 people gather weekly to worship, and for Easter, it was tastefully decorated with lilies, crocuses and daffodils One of the three people who rotate the organist duties played the church’s electronic organ and keyboard . The choir of 6-8 people faithfully lead every worship service, led Sunday’s service. Every Sunday, when a hymn is played, the congregation, of whom none are trained vocalists, sing with gusto. Easter Sunday was no exception. And on this Easter, the choir took on the challenge of singing a four-part anthem that exhibited their faithful devotion, as they powerfully opened their lungs for the last note of the piece which they all hit on pitch and at the right time. When I watched this Easter service, I felt a power as great as the power that I experienced in person in Davenport. I felt the power of the resurrection ignite the voices of folks for whom singing is not a natural asset. I felt the power of resurrection explode with uninhibited joy from folks whose lives are not bound by shackles of sophistication and perfection. Anyone attending Easter at Bethel Lutheran church could not help but feel the power of the resurrection, a power heard in the voices that filled that sanctuary with sound that could not be held in….no matter the pitch of the singer, no matter the timing of the notes, and no matter the tone of the voice. Alleluia!

The power of Easter is not a monolithic power. The power of the resurrection is more powerful than taste and talent. No matter the case, Jesus’ Easter victory over sin and death is TNT that explodes with unabashed power that cannot be held in. I hope that you felt that power take hold of your heart and life as you gathered with others who were singing and gathering around the table of the living Christ, but if you found yourself elsewhere on Easter Sunday, I hope that this Bungee Cord was a channel of that power to you, igniting an explosion of hope, joy and peace in you that cannot be held in.

Christ has risen!

He has risen, indeed!

ALLELUIA! ALLELUIA! ALLELUIA!

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

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